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w.je 250t|) anntbersarp of tl)e 

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Cljurcl) of #ra\iesienti 



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MARCH NINETEENTH 
AND TWENTY -FIRST 



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Rev. p. V. Van Buskirk 



1655 



1905 



The 250th Anniversary 



of the 



Rerorme 



(Dutch) 

of Gravesend 



Church 



March 19th and 21st, 1905 



* 



PcLstor 

P. V. VAN BUSKIRK 



Elders 
A. A. EMMENS 
CHAS. M. RYDER 
ELIAS H. RYDER 
AUGUSTUS F. FRIEND 

Organist 
E. VAN SICKLEN 



Dea.cons 
CHAS. R. STILLWELL 
JOHN S. RYDER 
CORNELIUS STRYKER 
STEPHEN C. PETTIT, M.D. 

TresLsurer 
E. W. VOORHIES 



Committee on Printing 
JOHN S. RYDER CORNELIUS STRYKER 




■164?t5 



^ 



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Qrfe<^;?'i(5 



SUNDAY, MARCH 19, 10:30 A. M. 



PRELUDE (Organ and Violin)— "Love's Greeting". . . .Edgar 
Mr. Alfred M. Voorhies, Violin. 

2 ANTHEM— "Bonus Est" Brackett 

3 INVOCATION AND SALUTATION. 

(The Pastor) "Let us invoke the Divine Presence and bless- 
ing. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we come to bless Thee 
this morning, that Thou hast revealed Thyself to us in such blessed 
manner. We come to bless Thee for the great purpose of redemp- 
tion which Thou hast given to the world, that all might be saved. 
Grant us now that the hearing and understanding of Thy Word 
to-day may lead us to a fuller service, giving us an uplifting in the 
Christian life that will give us peace and ultimate joy in Thy pres- 
ence when our work is done. And we will give the praise to Thee, 
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, world without end — 

Amen." 

4 RESPONSE (Choir) 

5 READING OF THE LAW 

"God spake all these words, saying : T am the Lord, Thy 
God.' " 

6 GLORIA 

7 FIRST SCRIPTURE LESSON 

The Eighty-fourth Psalm. 

8 DUET (Soprano and Alto)— "The Invisible Land" Leslie 

Misses Alida Storm and Alice Strong. 
3 



9 SECOND SCRIPTURE LESSON. 



Part of the Second Chapter of the First Epistle of Paul to 
the Corinthians. 



10 HYMN (924)— "O, God, Our Help" 

11 PRAYER 



O, Thou great and eternal God and our Heavenly Father, 
who girdest Thyself with light as with a garment and makest the 
heavens the place for manifesting forth Thy glory. Thou art the 
King eternal, immortal, invisible, dwelling in the light which no man 
can approach unto and whom no man hath seen, or can see. 

We come adoring Thy majesty, rejoicing in Thy sovereignty 
and praising Thee for that inexpressible revelation of Thyself unto 
us in the person of Jesus Christ, Thy dear Son, this morning. The 
heavens are Thine, the earth also is Thine, and we are Thine both 
by creation and by purchase. 

We come to adore Thee this morning, therefore, as our Creator, 
our Preserver and our bountiful Benefactor. In Thy house we 
come to pay our vows, before Thee we come confessing our sins, 
and from Thy blessed hand we expect the divine blessing of pardon. 
O, Thou God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom alone 
we can approach Thee aright, and in whose name alone we 
can hope for acceptance, we give Thee humble and hearty thanks 
for the gift of Thine only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the 
Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, sufifered under Pontius Pilate, 
was crucified, dead and buried and ascended. We bless Thee for 
His advent that opened up a way unto the heavenly, for His death 
that brought life to the world, and for His high priestly intercession, 
all availing in the right hand of His heavenly Father. With this 
supreme assurance we come to ofifer Thee our praise and our prayers 
this morning. In all our approaches to Thee may we have boldness 
and access with confidence by the faith of Him. May we know that 
He hath borne our grief and carried our sorrow, and be able to rejoice 
in Him as our sympathizing friend, our almighty helper and our 
lovely example. May we drink into His Spirit. May we transcribe 
the excellencies of His character into our own. May we place our 
feet in the very prints of his steps and follow Him in the regeneration 
till we shall be perfectly like Him and see Him as He is. 



Create within us, O God, a knowledge of Thy will, in all wisdom 
and spiritual understanding that we may approve things that are 
excellent, and be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. 

Many eyes are upon us ; lead us in a plain path, for Thy name's 
sake ! Many watch for our halting, but may we put to silence the 
ignorance of foolish men, and constrain them by our good works 
which they behold to glorify God in the day of visitation. We bless 
Thee, O God, for our wilderness privileges, for the manna, the 
streams of the smitten rock, the fiery, cloudy pillar, the tabernacle 
and the ark. But when all these shall have passed away and been 
left behind us, may we be invited into that sanctuary eternal, to 
serve Thee till time shall be no more. We bring Thee our thanks 
to-day for what our eyes behold and for what a quickened memory 
brings back to us. 

O Thou, God of our fathers, be Thou our God for all the days, 
we beseech Thee. We come to bless Thee this morning that thine 
eyes have been upon this ancient Church from the beginning until 
now. For the fathers who laid her foundations away back in the 
seventeenth century we give Thee humble and hearty thanks. For 
the faith and the prayers that prevailed and triumphed when the 
war-clouds hung dark and heavy upon the horizon, we bring our 
praises to Thee to-day. For the souls that have been born in her, 
who have waited upon Thine ordinances in this place, who have 
spent their time and means to erect this altar and have consecrated 
it with many prayers and many tears, we give Thee humble and 
hearty thanks. 

We bless Thee for a faithful ministry in this pulpit who have 
never failed to declare the whole counsel of God, whether men would 
hear, or whether they would forbear, and who have laid themselves 
upon the altar for the gospel's sake. For that triumphant faith 
that they possessed and that hath enabled them to pass through those 
gates of gold and who are now verily present before God in the 
kingdom of heaven, we give Thee profound and hearty thanks. And 
now, O Lord, to Thee we commit the interests of this beloved Zion 
which our fathers planted and fostered. 

To Thee, O our Father, we dedicate our lives and our persons 
this day for fuller service and larger service. 

In grateful acknowledgment of Thy fatherly goodness and 
mercy we turn our thoughts to Thee, O God, this supreme moment 
of this Church's life. 

And now may the God of Peace that brought again from the 



dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the 
blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good 
work to do His v^dll, working in you that which is well pleasing in 
His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. 
Amen. 



12 HYMN (559)— "I Love Thy Kingdom". 



13 HISTORICAL SERMON 



{The Pastor) Before I begin this sermon I want to acknowl- 
edge my indebtedness to several authors from whom I have gath- 
ered the matter, and more especially from the wisdom and the 
research of the Hon. William H. Stillwell, who was a townsman of 
yours in those earlier days of your history and life. And there are 
other historical works to which reference has been made, which I 
shall not be able to recount in the manuscript — but you will know 
what is mine and what is theirs. The words to which I will invite 
your attention, you will find recorded in the Fourth Chapter, accord- 
ing to St. Mark, and 28th verse, and in the last clause : "First, the 
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." 

The Church of God in the world is a growth and development. 
Instituted under the most adverse conditions, growing under the 
most pronounced opposition, coming to the zenith of its glory to-day, 
and destined to a supremacy, universal, that shall even put the glory 
of to-day in the shade beyond a peradventure. It began with one 
man as a starting point ; it shall never cease to be the greatest organ- 
ization under the firmament, till all nations and kindreds and peoples 
and tongues shall be embraced in that transcendent spectacle of 
uttering that great hallelujah chorus before the great white throne. 

All churches sprang from feeble beginnings. No church sprang 
full-fledged into being upon the footstool, ever. From the time that 
Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees to become the great head of the 
Church of God in the wilderness of Canaan, till to-day, the great 
sacramental hosts are numbered by the millions, under many names 
and in many climes, the Church of God in the world has been the 
most elaborate fulfilment that this world has ever seen, of our text 
this morning, "First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in 
the ear." 

The story of this Church's existence and life is the story of a 



rise from small beginnings, but the two hundred and fifty years of 
her life which we celebrate to-day, is something to be proud of, and 
hence the gatherings that we contemplate in honor of this existence, 
cannot but stir the blood of every one of us and move us to thanks- 
giving to Almighty God for such a heritage and possession. 

The beginning of this Church's existence is almost co-existent 
with the history of the existence of this town, and hence, a resume 
of the circumstances and events that led up to the early settlement 
of this town of Gravesend, may not be out of place just here. 

Conceive, if you can, of a trackless waste, of uninhabited terri- 
tory (except by the red man), with here and there a primitive 
dwelling of an occasional white settler, perhaps — with no school, no 
church, no friendly neighbors, even, to go to in time of need, except 
at wide distances. An agricultural folk, what there were of them ; 
primitive in dress, limited in knowledge, limited in means — and you 
have a faint resemblance of the reality that existed here where we 
sit to-day, just prior to 1645, when Lady Deborah Moody first 
appeared upon the scene. 

The Church of which you and I are proud to-day, if not born 
in her house, was born in close proximity to it, was "the Church in 
the wilderness" of which Megapolensis wrote ten years later, when 
he said, under date of March 18, 1655 : "We have cause to be 
grateful to the Lords, Directors, and to your reverences, for the care 
and trouble taken to procure for the Dutch on Long Island a good 
clergyman, even though it has not yet resulted in anything. Mean- 
while, God has led Dominie Johannes Polhemus from Brazil over 
the Caribbean Islands, to this place. He has for the present gone 
to Long Island to a village called 'Midwout,' which is somewhat 
the Meditullium of the other villages, to wit : Breucklyn, Amersfort 
and Gravesend." This was the beginning of this ancient Church, the 
first beginnings of the gospel of Christ in this region, the first 
appearance of the Church of God here, "in the blade." From that 
distant, far-off day till this moment, we have the Church "in the 
ear." And the great future spanning between to-day and the great 
day when the earth shall become flame and the elements melt with the 
fervent heat, is to constitute that great scene hinted at and prefigured 
by this description of Jesus Christ, "the full corn in the ear." 

Gravesend was not a Dutch settlement, and this accounts for 
the uncertainty when this Church's organization in this community 
was effected. Without entering into the controversy as to the origin 
of the name of the town, with Deborah Moody as a starting-point, 



we have an English woman settling here to become the real begin- 
ning of this town's actual existence. Gravesend was English in 
name, English in its first settlers and its early government, and all 
the traditions handed down to us, helping us in the solution of this 
problem, point back to our earliest existence as an existence under 
the Crown, with Lady Deborah Moody as the moving spirit in its 
creation and administration. She came to this country from England, 
for religion's sake, as did many another adventurer, who came to 
rugged New England and settled first in Salem, in Massachusetts, 
either early in 1640, or before it, for her name is found among the 
members of the Congregational Church, at Salem, in April, 1640. 
Here she lived, bought a farm, stocked it with cattle, and put it 
under cultivation. Becoming a convert to the views of Roger 
Williams, wiiich had overspread New England, she began to give 
expression of her dissent from the views of the Congregational 
Church, concerning infant baptism, and three years after joining the 
Church of Salem we find she was admonished by the Church, then 
excommunicated from the communion of the Church among whom 
she had cast her lot. 

This visitation of the wrath of the Church of Salem upon her 
head paved the way for her coming to New Amsterdam to seek a 
more congenial home among the Dutch, Here we find her in 1643, 
where she met Nicholas Stillwell, a tobacco planter, who had 
recently been driven from his farm by the Indians, and had taken 
refuge within the fort, until the redskins had ceased their depre- 
dations. These English-speaking people, naturally enough, not feel- 
ing quite at home where only the Dutch was spoken, began to cast 
about for a nevv^ settlement where they could be in the full use of 
their religious liberty, which they so dearly loved, and still be safe 
from the attacks of the Indians. The Dutch Government gladly 
seconded this proposition, and invited them to select from the unap- 
propriated lands of the West India Company, whose agents the 
Government was, and accordingly, we find a committee was 
appointed to select a site in what is now the Village of Gravesend, 
near the spot in which we are here convened. Gravesend was thus 
begun. 

The first patent for land was issued for 100 morgen, or 200 
acres, over against Conyene (Coney) Island. It bears date of 
August 1st, 1639, and was confirmed in 1643. The patent to Lady 
Moody from Governor Kieft, is dated December 19th, 1645. I^ 
gives and grants to "Ye Honorable Lady Deborah Aloody, Sir 



Henry Moody, Baronet, Ensign George Baxter and Sergeant James 
Hubbard, and any that shall join in association with them, a tract 
bounded on the creek adjacent to Coneyne Island, with the power 
to erect a town and fortifications, and to have and enjoy the free 
liberty of conscience, according to the customs and manners of 
Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magistrate 
or magistrates, or any other ecclesiastical minister that may pretend 
jurisdiction over them, and the liberty to constitute themselves a 
body politic, as freemen of the province and Town of Gravesend." 

Armed with this document. Lady Moody made haste to proceed 
to her newly acquired possessions, and began the laying out of the 
town. Here she built a house for herself, not far from the spot in 
which we are now sitting, offered asylum to any who came unto her 
in the name of religion, was honored and beloved by all who knew 
her, and passed away and was buried, by 1659, at least, and her dust 
lies in the old graveyard, not far away from this spot where we are 
worshipping to-day, awaiting the trumpet call of the Angel of the 
Resurrection. 

All the earliest environments of Gravesend being distinctly 
English, Lady Deborah Moody herself being an Englishwoman, and 
being the one great rallying center unto which all the English- 
speaking people flocked and congregated as most congenial because 
of the m.other tongue that was here spoken, it was only natural that 
some other religious creed should have obtained here, instead of the 
Dutch Reformed Church, which was the Church of Holland and not 
of England. Accordingly, the first religious sect that appeared in 
this locality, pervaded with religious impulses, whose history has 
come down to us, were Quakers, and the earliest Christian service 
held in this community, were of that distinctive type and order, and 
Lady Moody, herself, though not in entire sympathy, perhaps, with 
all their tenets, adopted that form of religious belief, and fellow- 
ship, for want of a better one. 

That the Quakers were not popular with the Colonial Gov- 
ernor, Peter Stuyvesant, is evident from the following incident: 
Robert Hodgson, who preached here in Gravesend in 1657, was 
arrested for holding service in this community, against the order 
of the Governor-General, Stuyvesant, along with two women who had 
entertained him at their home. Stuyvesant at once ordered the pris- 
oners sent to New Amsterdam, where he gave the women a piece of 
his mind in no uncertain language, and then released them, but 
Hodgson was made to feel the wrath of the old Dutch Governor. 



Ke was sentenced to two years' imprisonment at hard labor, or to 
pay a fine of six hundred guilders. Such a fine was beyond his 
power to liquidate, and accordingly he was compelled to bear the 
other alternative. Chained to a wheelbarrow, he was ordered to 
work, but refused, and was thereupon lashed by a negro until he 
fainted. He remained in prison for some months, was scourged 
repeatedly into insensibility, and was cruelly dealt with in many 
ways till, from sheer pity on the part of the Governor's sister, at his 
awful condition, he was prevailed upon to release him under a new 
sentence of banishment from the province. 

But all the inhabitants of Gravesend were not Quakers, for in 
1655, two years before Robert Hodgson appeared in Gravesend, 
Reverend John Megapolensis, of New Amsterdam, under date of 
March i8th of that year, wrote to the Classis of Amsterdam, as 
follows : "God has led Dominie Johannes Polhemus from Brazil 
over the Caribbean Islands to this place. He has for the present 
gone to Long Island to a village called Midwout, which is somewhat 
the Meditullium of the other villages, to wit : Breuckelen, Amersfort 
and Gravesend. There he has preached for the accommodation of 
the mhah'-tants on Sundays during the winter season." That was in 
1655, and under date of January 13th, 1657, in the petition of the 
magistrates of Amersfort, praying confirmation of an assessment for 
the minister's salary, said petition goes on to state that : "In order 
to raise the three hundred florins in the easiest way (needed to make 
up their quota of said amount) we have assessed the property of 
each person, conscientiously and to the best of our knowledge, here 
below given in detail, which, with what some parties from Graves- 
end have voluntarily offered to contribute, will make up a sum of 
three hundred florins." 

From all of which it appears that a Dutch Dominie was render- 
ing a Dutch service for the benefit of a Dutch contingent, some- 
where even at this early date, or Gravesend would not have made 
a contribution for the support of a minister settled over at the 
Churches of Midwout and Amersfort. In 1660 a formal petition 
was drawn up and sent to the Director-General and Council of New 
Amsterdam by the inhabitants of Gravesend, asking for the appoint- 
ment of a preacher or pastor to be sent here, that then the glory of 
God may be spread, the ignorant taught, the simple and innocent 
strengthened, and the licentious restrained. Then we shall be able 
to live in greater peace and in the fear of the Lord, under your 
Honor's wise administration and government. Whereupon relying 

10 



we await your Honor's favorable reply, and so doing, etc." Signed 
by ten names, including the name of Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell. 

Nothing, however, came of the petition, and in 1664 the coun- 
try passed into the hands of the English. Under a new regime, new 
laws were enacted and the governmental policy of England was 
substituted for that which prevailed under the Dutch government, 
and the first building used for court purposes and afterwards used 
for Church services as well, was erected in Gravesend and was 
known as the "Sessions House." This "Sessions House," or Court 
House, was erected at the expense of Kings County, with Newtown 
and Staten Island, and Gravesend had the honor bestowed upon it 
of becoming the County seat, virtually, of Kings County, from 1667 
to 1685, when a law was passed removing the County seat to Flat- 
bush. The location of the Sessions House was on a lot set apart 
for the purpose, on the southeast corner of the northwesterly village 
square, forty-eight feet east and west, and forty-three feet on the 
northerly and southerly sides or boundaries. The conditions and 
obligations contained in its erection were as follows : The town was 
to furnish the land on which the building was to be built, free of 
cost; it covenanted to keep the building in repair for twenty-one 
years, barring casualties, and they were to have the use of the build- 
ing for Church or town purposes, as occasion might require. This 
building was completed in 1667, and thus became the first Church 
edifice in which religious services were held in the town of Graves- 
end. 

Dominie Polhemus had been the pastor at Flatbush and Flat- 
lands now since 1655, and continued to remain so till 1676. Whether 
he ever officiated in the Sessions House, at Gravesend, we do not 
know, but we do know that Gravesend journeyed to Brooklyn, occa- 
sionally, perhaps to Flatbush and Flatlands as well, to hear the Word 
of God in those days, for Dominie Hendrick Selyns says : "We do 
not preach in a Church but in a barn." (Korenscheur.) Next win- 
ter we shall, by God's favor, and the general assistance of the people, 
erect a Church. The audience is passably large, coming from Mid- 
wout, New Amersfort, and often Gravesend, increases it. 

In 1685 the Sessions House was removed from Gravesend to 
Flatbush, and the old Sessions House, and the lot on which it had 
stood in Gravesend, was afterwards sold to a number of the residents 
of the town, as subsequent deeds of individuals' "rights in the meet- 
ing house and grounds" show. The interval spanned between the 
years 1685 and 1705 seems involved in obscurity in the history of 

II 



the Church. No records have come down to us which are authori- 
tative and rehable, of a distinct and separate organization, as yet. 
We grope our way in the dark, in search of any separate ecclesiasti- 
cal exercise, till a few years later. Suffice it to say that probably 
the services of Dominies Selyns, Van Zureen, Varick and Lapardus, 
as occasional supplies who came over from Flatbush and Flatlands, 
as occasion permitted, filled in the time from 1685 to 1705, when 
Dominie Bernadus Freeman enters upon the scene. 

With the death of Wilhelmus Lupardus in 1701, all the Churches 
in Kings County were left without a pastor. In 1705 some of the 
Consistories of the Churches of Kings County wanted to call Rev- 
erend Bernardus Freeman to the pastorate of the Churches, and 
there were other Consistories who wished to call Reverend Vincen- 
tius Antonides to the same position at the same time. Freeman, 
allowing himself to become the tool of Governor Cornbury, was 
induced to accept a civil license at his hand, December 26th, 1705, to 
officiate in the Churches on Long Island, and moved down from 
Schenectady to become the pastor of these Churches, after he had 
already declined a call from them. The rest of the Churches, on 
the other hand, had, through the Classis, secured the services of Vin- 
centius Antonides, from Holland. Both of these ministers accepted, 
and as each party claimed to represent all the Churches of the 
County, an acrimonious dispute sprang up, and became so intense 
that it threatened the ven.' life of the Dutch Churches on Long 
Island. At length, the bitterness of this ecclesiastical controversy 
died away, and the parties to the dispute became reconciled to each 
other, and a kind of peace was patched up, which resulted, happily 
for the Churches, in an agreement in 1714, on December 27th of that 
year, between the six associate or Collegiate Churches of Brooklyn, 
Flatbush, Flatlands, New Utrecht, Bushwick and Jamaica, by 
which the joint services of both Dominies Freeman and Antonides 
were secured. 

By this cessation of hostilities and the signing of articles of 
capitulation in the adoption of this agreement between the six Col- 
legiate Churches, Gravesend was to be benefited, as we shall see. 
In the controversy between Freeman and Antonides, New^ Utrecht 
had espoused the side of Bernardus Freeman, and Gravesend seems 
to have sided with her in that contention, having made some arrange- 
ment with that town for some part of the ministerial services of Mr. 
Freeman, and for which they paid a part of his salary, receipts for 
which. Dominie Lebagh declared, he had seen in unbroken succession 

12 



from May 13th, 1706, to December 25th, 1714. Evidence number 
one that Gravesend was then at that time an organization. Then 
the agreement entered into on January 4th, 171 5, between John 
Lake and John Simonson on the one side, and CorneHus Van Brunt 
and Peter Cortelyou on the other, signing a compact between the 
Town of New Utrecht and the Town of Gravesend, for the third 
part of all the ministerial services of Reverends Freeman and Anto- 
nides, puts the organization of this ancient Church at that time as 
a fact beyond a peradventure. 

The specifications contained in this agreement were as follows, 
as recorded in the Kings County Register's Office, and translated 
from the Dutch: "First, that Gravesend shall have the full third 
part of the whole of the religious services of the Reverends Free- 
man and Antonides, which New Utrecht has obtained by agreement 
between the six associated towns — that is, when New Utrecht has 
had two turns, then Gravesend shall have a third in that town ; and 
when the Lord's Supper is twice administered in New Utrecht, the 
third time it shall be administered in Gravesend ; and so on for all 
time in this manner. Second, Gravesend promises to pay a full third 
part of the salary which New Utrecht had agreed to pay, every half- 
year, according to the agreement of the six associated towns, begin- 
ning with New Years, 171 5, and so on yearly, during the whole of 
the time of the service of said ministers. Further, Gravesend prom- 
ises to fetch one-third of the firewood required for their use, and 
Vv^hich New Utrecht has agreed to fetch, at such times and manner as 
shall fall to her share. Also to bear the one-third part of New 
Utrecht's proportion of the cost of repairs to the ministerial resi- 
dence." 

This article of agreement, signed, sealed and delivered, and 
recorded in the Register's Office of the County, over the signatures 
of these chosen representatives, together with an official list of Elders 
and Church members, reaching back to 1714, sweeps away every 
vestige of doubt as to this Church's organization being clearly estab- 
lished and having the ordinances regularly administered during the 
pastorate of Bernardus Freeman, reaching from 1705 to 1741, when 
he was declared emeritus and retired from the service of the min- 
istry. 

On the retirement of Mr. Freeman he was succeeded by Rev. 
erend Johannes Arondeus, who came from Holland in 1742, and 
preached in Kings County till 1747. The Reverend Vincentius Anto- 
nides died that same year, 1742, and he was succeeded by Reverend 

13 



Ulpianus Van Sinderin. The two ministers did not agree very well 
together. Arondeus was of a contumaceous spirit, had frequent 
quarrels with his colleague; he was charged with drunkenness and 
other crimes, and finally, in 1750, was suspended from the ministry 
by the Coetus, but he paid no attention to it. How long Arondeus 
officiated at Gravesend is not known, but it could not have been 
long, for in 1745 the Church was ministered unto by Bernadus Ver 
Bryck, as appears from an entry in the baptismal registry between 
the dates 1720 and 1745. In 1745, the historian says, the Reverend 
Arondeus, Pastor of the Churches of Flatbush and Flatlands, and of 
the Church of Gravesend, withdrew from the arrangement made 
with New Utrecht, in 1714-15, and without any known cause, cut 
oft' the Church and congregation from all religious service whatso- 
ever. There have been many short cuts into the ministry, and not a 
few of them questionable and of doubtful propriety in the methods 
and means pursued for attaining unto that end. The sudden termi- 
nation of the contract made between the Churches of New Utrecht 
and Gravesend in 1714-15, on the part of Arondeus, left the Church 
at a loss to know what to do in the premises, and the first step they 
took in the way of filling up their lack of a minister for their pulpit, 
was in securing the services of Bernadus Ver Bryck, a schoolmaster, 
to conduct services for them as a pulpit supply in the interim. 

Ver Bryck began the study of Theology Avith Arondeus when 
he was Pastor of the Churches of Kings County, without the per- 
mission or sanction of either Classis or Synod, He ordained him, 
and the people of the Town of Gravesend, considering that laying 
on of hands on the part of Arondeus valid, they engaged him as 
their Pastor. Ver Bryck preached in Gravesend and baptized chil- 
dren here, as is evident from the old Church records, but removed 
to North Branch, New Jersey, in 1749, and thus his connection with 
this Church ceased. Then followed a period of ten or twelve years, 
fraught with anxiety and concern, second to none in the checkered 
career of this ecclesiastical organization. The sky had been dark 
before, but now it assumed an inky blackness. The dissention 
between Freeman and Antonides augured ill for this weak creation 
just launched upon its career of preaching Christianity to the people 
of that early day. Then when Arondeus summarily snapped asunder 
the bands of the contract between Gravesend and New Utrecht, made 
in 171 5, by refusing to render any further service to this Church 
without giving any reason for his course pursued, that was a sad 
blow to the cause of religion in this community. And now, when 

14 



scarcely yet recovered from the shock of these two previous attacks 
upon her prestige and Church life, the removal of Ver Bryck away 
from the community, and its train of providential circumstances, 
which could, perhaps, have been neither foreseen nor averted, struck 
at the very life of this Zion, still wearing only her swaddHng 
clothes, threatening her almost with extinction. 

The retirement of Ver Bryck leaving this pulpit vacant, and 
the decimated ranks of the rank and file of this young sacramental 
host, by death and other causes, those that were left in it becoming 
disheartened and ready to give up in despair, jeopardized the very 
existence of the Church to a degree that made its continuance almost 
questionable. 

The old Sessions House, which had stood since it was built, in 
1667, had become dilapidated beyond repair, through age; it was so 
old that it had to be taken down. The congregation had been 
weakened so much by death and other causes, that there were not 
sufficient male members left to fill the offices of Elders and Deacons. 
Then add to this list, the distractions that were rending the Church 
at large, on account of the controversy that existed between the 
Coetus and Conferentia parties (whether ordinations could and 
should be performed in this country, irrespective of the authority and 
consent of the old Classis of Amsterdam, which was then sweeping 
over the Churches). And, in addition to all this, remember the 
moral effect upon the community at large, of the dissolute and 
immoral life of Arondeus, who had been charged with drunkenness 
and other crimes, and suspended from the ministry. 

With all this array of discouragements confronting them, we 
need not be surprised that they had to close the Church, because 
they could go on no longer. 

This was the state of things in this Town and Community from 
the time that Ver Bryck left, in 1749-50, till 1762, ten or twelve years 
later, when Reverend Martinus Schoonmaker became a potent factor 
in the Church's life. In that year this godly and earnest young man 
visited Gravesend and by hard, personal work and earnest appeals 
aroused this Gravesend constituency from its lethargy and discour- 
agements. He was a young man full of fire and earnestness. He 
sought the help and advice of old Dominie Van Sinderin, then living 
in an adjoining congregation, in his proposed task ; and he was greatly 
helped by him in formulating his plans to be pursued. 

In 1760 the old Sessions House was torn down, and in 1762 
the people, under the inspiration of young Schoonmaker, and the 

15 



help of good Dominie Van Sinderin, were reorganized into the 
Church of our Reformed order, with twelve male and nine female 
members, or a total of twenty-one. They immediately took steps 
toward building a new Church edifice, and this first building con- 
structed distinctively for Church purposes, and the second that had 
been used for purposes of worship, was built upon the identical spot 
where the old Sessions House had stood. 

No cut or picture of this old tabernacle has been able to be found, 
but the description of it has descended from father to son, and there 
is no lack of evidence that we have an authoritative and accurate 
representation of this ancient Church, preserved unto posterity 
beyond a peradventure. It stood facing the south, as the old Sessions 
House had done before it. It was slightly smaller than its predeces- 
sor, built in 1667, and was of the style of architecture current for 
Church buildings in that day. That is to say : It was a low build- 
ing with a double pitched roof, and having double doors of entrance. 
It was painted brown, inside and out, with four windows of small 
panes, of upper and lower sash, on either side. One aisle in the 
center of the building ran the entire length, in which were two 
strong pillars, each about fifteen feet from the end, supporting the 
roof. A gallery for young men ran across the south end, and under 
this were the quarters reserved for the colored people of the Church. 
The pulpit, at the north end, was a plain octagon coop, reached by a 
spiral stairs, and perched upon a pole. The sides of the edifice were 
shingled, and the inside sealed with boards. The building was sur- 
mounted by a spire containing a belfry, and a bell, weighing per- 
haps eighty pounds, to summon the worshippers on Sabbath morn- 
ing. And above all stood the orthodox weathercock, so common 
in the Fatherland, of approved Dutch make and finish. There were 
no heating appliances, except the current foot-stove, which the 
housewife brought along with her from her home, and filled with 
live coals from a neighbor's house in close proximity to the place of 
worship. As to the minister, it was no uncommon thing for him to 
go into the country tavern nearest at hand, and take a dram of 
standard make and purity, along with his parishioners, before going 
into the pulpit, to keep out the cold and limber up his tongue for 
the long Dutch sermon which was to follow. 

This Church building, unpretentious in appearance and primi- 
tive in the extreme, was built from moneys realized from the sale 
of pews, with the understanding that no tax or assessment should 
ever be imposed upon the owners, a promise that was faithfully and 

16 



sacredly kept. Completed in 1762 this Church edifice, the first that 
was erected exclusively for religious purposes, was dedicated to the 
service of God and opened for divine worship on July 25th, 1762, by 
Dominie Schoonmaker. This must have been while he was yet a 
student of Theology, for he was not licensed to preach till 1765, and 
then was a young man only twenty-eight years old. 

Soon after this Schoonmaker became the Pastor of the Churches 
of Harlem and Gravesend, taking up his residence in Harlem and 
journeying to Gravesend on horseback, as occasion demanded, receiv- 
ing for his services rendered here thirty-five pounds sterling (one 
hundred and seventy-five dollars) per year, and preaching at frequent 
intervals. On August loth, 1768, Reverend Martinus Schoonmaker 
bought a farm in Harlem, consisting of twenty-eight acres, on which 
he resided, and where he made his home. Preaching at Gravesend 
on alternate Sundays it was his custom to journey to this place on 
Saturday afternoons, and put up at the house of some parishioner, 
where he had been invited to stay over Sunday, and on Aionday 
morning return hom.e unless some necessary engagement compelled 
him to remain over for a longer time. 

The hardships attending this pastorate under such untoward 
conditions, can be more easily imagined than described. An earnest 
patriot, the unsettled state of the country left him a suspect in the 
eyes of the British, more than once. Plots to capture him were 
frustrated more than once only by the alertness and loyalty of his 
friends. His journeys to Harlem were fraught with dangers on 
repeated occasions, but still he followed the leadings of Providence 
and braved the storms which threatened him, and became the one 
pioneer of the Church in Gravesend in this wilderness of hardships 
and distress, Vv'hose nam.e is a sweet benediction yet to-day, and 
whose work shall not be scon forgotten. Gravesend never had so 
much for so little as she had in the life-blood of Martinus Schoon- 
maker, poured out upon the altar in the heroic effort to stir up her 
people to a more pronounced religious life, and in preaching the 
Gospel of Christ under such forbidding conditions, for that mere 
pittance of thirty-five pounds sterling, or a hundred and seventy- 
five dollars per year. Schoonmaker, faithful to the trust that God 
had committed to bis hands, patient and unfaltering in this first 
charge of his early choice, was paving the way to a more honorable 
and a more lucrative position that was awaiting him though he knew 
it not. 

While he was ministering here. Reverend John Casper Rubel 

17 



had succeeded Arondeus as a colleague of Reverend Van Sinderin 
in the other Reformed Churches of Kings County. Dominie Van 
Sinderin, by reason of the infirmities of age, resigned in 1784, and 
his colleague, Rubel, was deposed from the ministry on account of 
drunkenness and ill treatment of his wife, in May of that same year. 
Consequently, the Churches of Brooklyn, Flatbush, New Utrecht, 
Bushwick and Flatlands were again left without a Pastor. On the 
fifth day of October, 1784, the united Churches of Kings County 
issued a call to Reverend Mr. Schoonmaker, which, after some delay, 
he accepted (offering him one hundred and fifty pounds sterling — 
seven hundred and fifty dollars — salary per year), on the condition 
and with the understanding that Gravesend be associated with the 
other Churches, and still remain under his pastoral care, he being 
unwilling to sever his connection with that Church. This proposi- 
tion was cheerfully agreed to, and Dominie Schoonmaker immediately 
took steps towards removing from Harlem to Flatbush. 

In 1785, therefore, the collegiate relation between Harlem and 
Gravesend was dissolved by mutual consent ; the Reverend Martinus 
Schoonmaker resigned his charge and sold his farm in Harlem in 
order to become the Pastor of the Collegiate Churches of Kings 
County, and to this collegiate arrangement Gravesend became a 
party, having services held there every six weeks. 

On October 28th, 1787, Reverend Peter Lowe, a licentiate, was 
called and became the colleague of Dominie Schoonmaker. He was 
ordained in the Church at New Utrecht on Sunday morning, and 
installed next day in the Church at Flatbush. He continued Asso- 
ciate Pastor of these Churches with Dominie Schoonmaker, till 1808, 
when he took more immediate charge of the Churches of Flatbush 
and Flatlands, while Dominie Schoonmaker confined his ministra- 
tions to the others, till the next year, 1809, when Dominie Beattie 
became Pastor of New Utrecht, and in 181 1 John Bassett became 
Pastor of Bushwick and Gravesend. 

After this date Schoonmaker exercised a general superintend- 
ence over the Churches of Kings County, preaching on alternate 
Sundays at Bushwick, on which occasion Bassett preached at Graves- 
end, in which Church, under this arrangement, there was preaching 
every alternate Sunday. In this way the Church at Gravesend was 
ministered unto, until a too great addiction to intoxicants caused 
his suspension from the ministry in 1824, soon after which he died. 
With the suspension and death of Dominie Bassett. and the depart- 
ure from his earthly toils to the rest prepared for the people of God, 



of Dominie Schoonmaker, at eighty years of age, both of which 
events occurred in the year 1824, this Church was again left with- 
out a pastor and had to depend upon suppHes. 

For eight years following the death of this lamented and 
beloved servant of God (Dominie Schoonmaker), the Church shared 
in the services of such men as it could obtain from time to time, not 
the least remarkable among whom was Dominie John Hendricks, a 
man of quaint and original speech, transparent guilelessness, kindly 
and genial spirit, and whose amusing views of men and things have 
made his name a household word and printed him in indellible char- 
acters upon the gages of memory of those who knew him. Add to 
this discouraging feature in this Church's history, the other fact 
that the old Church building, erected in 1762, was becoming old and 
dilapidated and almost untenantable through age, and you have the 
untoward conditions that confronted this people when in 1832, Rev- 
erend Isaac P. Labagh was invited to this field to become the Church's 
Pastor. He was installed on November 7th of that year, and was 
the first minister who gave his whole time to this charge alone, and 
was called by the Consistory at an annual compensation of five 
hundred dollars. 

Among the first things this newly-acquired man of God sought 
to do was to revise the roll of membership of this ancient Zion, and 
collect together the scantily-kept records of business proceedings and 
Consistorial action. And, having succeeded in this, he next turned 
his attention to the erection of a new house of worship, to take the 
place of the old one. 

On the thirtieth day of November, 1832, a meeting of Consis- 
tory was called and a committee appointed, consisting of Garret 
Stryker, Nicholas S. Williamson and Samuel I. Garretson, to take 
up the matter of the building of a new Church, its estimated cost, 
the site on which it was to be erected, and so forth ; who, after inves- 
tigation, reported in favor of purchasing additional ground adjoin- 
ing the old site, on the north and west sides thereof. This the Com- 
mittee were authorized to do, and were also empowered to erect a 
new church edifice on the enlarged site. And accordingly they pur- 
chased from Cornelius I. Emmons and Maria, his wife, for two 
hundred and fifty dollars, a tract of land sixty-five feet by one hun- 
dred and forty-six feet by one hundred and thirteen feet by one 
hundred and four feet; thence westerly along the old Church lot, 
forty-three feet ; then southerly forty-eight feet, to the place of begin- 
ning. The title to the above was vested in the Elders and Deacons 

19 



of the Reformed Dutch Church and Congregation of Gravesend, to 
have and to hold as joint tenants, and not as tenants in common, 
subject, nevertheless, and in trust for the sole use and benefit of 
the Reformed Dutch Church and Congregation of the Town of 
Gravesend, in the County of Kings aforesaid. Upon this site just 
acquired and duly recorded, this Committee proceeded at once to 
erect a new structure. They had three thousand eight hundred and 
thirty-three dollars in hand for this purpose, and on February 5th, 
1833, set forward in real earnest to construct an edifice tO' meet 
their needs — forty-five feet front and sixty-two feet deep, to be built 
by day-work, and with Hendrick Van Dyck as boss carpenter. The 
master carpenter in charge, fixed the scale of prices to be paid to 
the workmen, and all the carpenters in the town, who desired, it was 
agreed should be employed thereon. 

This building was completed and dedicated to the service of 
God on January 5th, 1834, with new pews in the new auditorium, and 
the old pews from the old Church placed in the basement, which 
was fitted up for a Sunday School room. 

The Reverend Isaac P. Labagh continued his ministrations to 
this people till 1842, when, on account of erroneous views which he 
had entertained through association with two new-found friends who 
were Hebrews, living at Unionville, he was summoned to appear 
before Classis to answer for his change of views concerning the 
observance of the Sabbath, and refusing to obey the summons he 
was suspended from the ministry and the pulpit again became 
vacant. 

Early in the next year, January 22nd, 1843, the Consistory 
extended a call to the Reverend Abraham I. Labagh (a cousin of the 
former Pastor) to become the Pastor of this Church, and he accepted. 
Up to this time no provision had been made for a parsonage, for the 
former Pastor had lived in his own house. In the advent of Rev- 
erend Abraham I. Labagh as the newly-chosen Pastor of this field, 
the Consistory rented a farm house of John I. Stillwell, in Gravesend 
Neck, the extreme easterly part of the congregation, as a parsonage, 
and the Reverend Mr. Labagh moved into it till a desirable site 
could be secured and a house erected thereon. 

The new incumbent having just returned from the charge of 
the Reformed Church at St. Thomas, in the West Indies, and being 
ill-prepared to stand the rigors of the northern winters, was com- 
pelled to seek a more genial climate until he became accustomed to 
the change, and the Reverend R. D. Van Kleek, Principal of Erasmus 

20 



Hall, in Flatbush. from 1843-1860, officiated here in his absence and 
in his stead. 

A parsonage which had long been a necessity now began to 
attract the attention of the congregation. On September 21st, 1844, 
a committee was appointed by the Consistory to choose a site and 
proceed with the erection of a suitable building thereon. The land 
was bought of John I. Lake and Ann, his wife, and the building was 
erected by the carpenters, Lawrence and Jacobus Ryder — plain, 
unpretentious, but commodious and comfortable, and still stands a 
monument to the memories of those dear men who constructed it. 

In due time Reverend Mr. Labagh moved into it, and made it 
beautiful within, by the sweetness of the lives of himself and his 
esteemed wife, and without, by all that the hands of the horticulturist 
could put upon it. The severity of the long and trying winters, how- 
ever, lost none of their dreaded features by the passage of years, and 
it began to tell upon the health of both the good Dominie and his 
wife, and giving up in despair of becoming acclimated to the north- 
ern latitude, in 1859 he resigned. In the same year the Consistory 
invited Reverend Maurice G. Hansen to the pastorate of this Church, 
and he accepted. 

A young man fresh from the Seminary, at New Brunswick, at 
which he had just graduated in May of that year, full of fiery earnest- 
ness, clear-headed and of deep and earnest piety, he won his way 
to the hearts of the people, and this pulpit gave no uncertain sound 
during the whole period of his incumbency. He was a man of the 
old school type natural to him from his Holland ancestry. He was 
brought up on the Heidelberg Catechism: he believed every word 
of that Calvinistic expression of faith, and his catechetical classes 
and instructions have not yet been lost upon the community. A 
hard student and profound thinker, a great reader and a writer who 
has left literature enough behind him to insure his name being pre- 
served and honored by posterity for many years yet to come. 

Mr. Hansen continued in this pastorate till 1871, when he 
resigned, and shortly afterward accepted a call to Coxsackie, New 
York, where he did good service for many years, and only relin- 
quished the work of successful pastorates at Grace Chapel at Flat- 
bush, and Hegeman's Mills, New York, the work to which he had 
consecrated his life, when failing health and declining years sum- 
moned him to stop. The last recorded acts of these twelve years of 
faithful ministry, are still extant in the fair handwriting of their 
chief actor. His last baptism of record w^as : "Richard Davis, the 

21 



child of Dr. R. L. Van Kleek and Ellen S. Lawrence, his wife, on 
October 21st, 1871." His latest marriage ceremony was that of Cor- 
nelius S. Stryker and Elizabeth Lake, on June 13th, 187 1. And his 
last right hand of fellowship extended to welcome new members into 
the Church, was that which welcomed Ellen Jane Cornell (Mrs. 
John S. Ryder) and Richard Henry Van Cleef into full communion, 
June 2nd, 1871. ("Servant of God, well done. Rest from thy loved 
employ. The battle fought, the victory won ; Enter thy Master's 
joy.") 

Mr. Hansen was succeeded on January ist, 1872, by Reverend 
Austin P. Stockwell, a graduate of Amherst College and of Union 
Theological Seminary, with successful pastorates at Pleasant Plains 
and Millbrook, Dutchess County, New York, from which he came 
here, where he left many warm friends behind him. His biographer 
says he was, in an eminent degree, the friend of the poor and the 
lowly, the downcast and careworn. Modest and unassuming in his 
deportment, pleasing within the pulpit and out of it, refined, hard- 
working and painstaking, probably no pastor since Dominie Schoon- 
maker enjoyed and deserved the full support and confidence of the 
community greater than he. His pulpit preparation was careful and 
thorough, his sermons plain, practical and convincing, eminently 
evangelical, theologically sound from center to circumference, and 
delivered always with a seriousness of manner that left no doubt in 
the minds of his hearers that he was the accredited ambassador of the 
great King. He was a four-square man, standing upon a four- 
square platform and with a four-square message to deliver, and he 
delivered it without fear. 

It was his privilege and joy to receive many of you who are 
here present this morning into the full communion of this Church, 
and has preceded you only a little and is waiting your coming to- 
day into the great spiritual communion of the Church Triumphant on 
high. For fifteen years he went in and out among you, sometimes 
satisfied and sometimes not so well satisfied with the gathered results 
of his work, and in the fall of 1886, having received an invitation to 
become a missionary in connection with the Childrens' Aid Society 
of the City of New York, he resigned this charge to take up that 
work that seemed to him a call from God for his services. 

That feeling of dissatisfaction with results, which comes sooner 
or later to every conscientious and consecrated Christian minister 
and servant of God, moved him to write thus feelingly and tenderly 
to his Consistory : "I have been the pastor of this Church for the 

22 



past fifteen years, a very much longer pastorate than the average, 
even in our staid Reformed Church. During this time we have had 
many seasons of refreshing and many, we beheve, have been hope- 
fully converted. But the feeling has been growing upon me for the 
past year, that so far as the present generation of those unconverted 
is concerned, my work among them is done. If a pastorate of fifteen 
years has failed to bring them to Christ, I could hardly expect one of 
fifty to do it." 

With this tinge of a feeling of discouragement, not unlike that 
of Elijah when he lay under the Juniper tree, oppressing him, this 
Consistory reluctantly listened to his prayer and united with him in 
an application to the Classis for a dissolution of the pastoral rela- 
Uqv.. 

Concerning the present incumbency and this present pastorate, 
so fresh in your minds, so well known in your lives, and so utterly 
unworthy of comparison with the work of those great Boanerges who 
have all passed away, I may be pardoned if I leave myself out of 
consideration altogether this morning in this last chapter and last 
leaf of the chapter concerning the history of this Church's life. If 
I could close this historical discourse without a single personal allu- 
sion to myself I would do it. I have not done much. I have done 
very little, but what I have done I have done conscientiously and 
to the best of my ability, according to the light that God has given 
me. But I do not want any praise for what I have done. If it is 
worthy of remembrance, it will have it when we have all reached the 
great white throne. 

With this one word, if you will suffer it, I wish you would drop 
the present incumbent in this pulpit, out of sight, for propriety for- 
bids any further reference to myself. I came to you on January 
23rd, 1887, with the great invitation of the Revelation : "Come, the 
spirit and the bride," etc., and I have not ceased to make that the 
high ideal of presentation in my preaching, as I hope to make it still, 
by the grace of God, till my ministry in this pulpit shall cease. 

The Church building which had been the scene of most of the 
ministry of Reverend Isaac P. Labagh, and the entire ministries of 
the three succeeding pastors, the congregation began to feel stood 
in need of removal from its present site, before my advent among 
you, on account of the rapidly increasing traffic on Sundays on the 
railroad that ran immediately in front of the property, and because 
of the noise of the frequent trains with their menace to life and 
limb, that threatened a large portion of the congregation every Sab- 

23 



bath. And in 1892, in the Providence of God, a way was opened for 
the congregation to change its location for the better, and it gladly 
availed itself of it. The lot on which the Church stood had become 
valuable for commercial purposes by the passage of years, and in the 
fall of the year 1892 the Town Board of the Town of Gravesend pur- 
chased the property for public purposes, for fifteen thousand dollars. 

The contract of sale was signed on December 22nd, and on 
January i6th, 1893, the deed was given to the principals in the trans- 
action, we covenanting to give possession to the property on June 
1 6th, 1893, and have all the buildings removed from the premises 
by that date. 

The new site for the new Church was purchased of Mr. J. M. 
Stillwell, as soon as possible after the sale had been effected, and 
consisted of three and a half acres on the Neck Road, east of the 
old location, for which the congregation paid six thousand dollars, 
and immediately took steps in the direction of rearing a new struc- 
ture. Bids for the new Church were invited and secured, and the 
contract for the building was awarded to Messrs. Peter Van Note 
for the carpenter work, and Mr. Benville Schweimler for the mason 
work, at a cost of twenty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty dol- 
lars — the building to be of washed brick with terra-cotta trimmings. 
The bids for the new structure were opened on August 4th, 1893, 
and ground was broken on August 9th, 1893, the Pastor taking out 
the first shovel of earth at eight o'clock in the morning. 

The cornerstone was laid October 8th, 1893, with addresses by 
Doctors Wells, Brush and Rev, J. S. Gardner, and the completion 
of the edifice and its dedication for divine worship took place on 
October 28th, 1894. Reverend Dr. Farrar of the Seventh Avenue 
Church, Brooklyn, preaching the sermon. 

The first service held in the new Church was that of the Execu- 
tive Committee of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, 
when it was yet in its unfinished state — June 8th, 1894. 

The pews for the new edifice were the gift of the Christian 
Endeavor Society, and the carpets for the same were the bestow- 
ment of the Ladies' Aid Society of the Church and congregation. 

Thus fully equipped and handsomely completed, this Church 
came into the possession of the congregation, a model of excellence 
and beauty that owes a debt of gratitude to-day to that able and 
far-sighted and devoted consistory who assumed this great task and 
carried it on to completion without a jar or a misunderstanding, from 
foundation to finish. 

24 



In the early winter of iQoo the perilous enterprise of selling the 
old parsonage and erecting a new one on the newly-acquired land 
on which the new Church stood, began to assume a tangible form in 
this community. It had long been felt that the distance that spanned 
between the parsonage and the Church was something that might 
and ought to be remedied ; and a desire to concentrate the Church 
properties began to appeal to the wisdom of the friends of the 
Church. And on December 29th, 1900, the agreement was signed 
and the first payment made, on the sale of this piece of real estate 
which had been in the possession of the Church since 1844, for the 
lump sum of nine thousand dollars. An order from the Court author- 
izing the sale, was obtained in due time, and four thousand dollars 
was applied to wiping out the balance of a mortgage of twelve thou- 
sand dollars which had been put upon the new Church ; and five 
thousand dollars was left at the disposal of the Consistory to be rein- 
vested and applied in a new parsonage adjoining the Church. On 
May 13th, 1901, bids for the new parsonage were opened, and the 
contract awarded to Bennett and Ryder, two young men in this old 
Church organization, for the sum of four thousand five hundred 
and fifty dollars, the building to be completed by August 25th, 1901, 
under a penalty of ten dollars per day for every day that passed 
beyond that date, in case of failure. 

The contract was faithfully carried out, and in due time the 
house was completed and the present incumbent had the high honor 
accorded him of becoming the first occupant of the handsome prop- 
erty. 

Nineteen hundred and five, the anniversary of the two hundred 
and fifty years of existence of this ancient Church, finds it in the 
possession of a handsome Church edifice and a comfortable, up-to- 
date parsonage, and the whole property unincumbered and free of 
debt and with money in the treasury. "Not unto us, O Lord, not 
unto us but unto Thy name be the glory. Thine, O Lord, is the 
greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the 
majesty, for all that is in heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is 
the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as head over all." 

To-day I conclude the eighteenth year of this pastorate. I 
thank you all for the help and the prayers you have extended to me 
in this pastoral relation, and for your financial aid in all the events 
when your help was needed and solicited. 

For the peace that was perched upon our banners in those trying 

25 



days when building a new sanctuary confronted us I will not be 
forgetful this morning. 

For the unanimity of sentiment that continued throughout that 
day that made that work lighter and pleasanter, I will not forget to 
give thanks this morning. The master builders in that magnificent 
enterprise have some of them passed away, but some of them remain 
till this day. I want to lay this small tribute of thanksgiving upon 
the graves of those departed this morning for those noble lives, for 
their prayers and their labors and sacrifices so invaluable to this 
congregation. And to those who had the honor accorded them of 
planting this Church of God in such lovely situation, my prayer is 
that they may all live long and happily under these temple walls, till 
the great angel of the Resurrection shall throw open the great gates 
of the City of Gold, and of God, to their occupation, forever and 
ever. 

14 PRAYER— The Pastor 

"O God, Thou art the God of our fathers and Thou art our God, 
and we praise Thee. We give Thee hearty thanks at this moment 
for all Thy watchful care. We come to thank Thee for the lives of 
those who have lived and passed away and entered into the glory that 
is to follow. May we be able to live the life of Christ as they lived 
it. Grant that Thy blessing may rest upon this ancient Church ; 
grant us the spirit of prayer and of consecration. May the presence 
of the Holy Spirit come upon each one of us as we celebrate this 
momentous event in the history of this Church, and we will conclude 
our prayer saying, as Thou hast taught us, 'Our Father.' " 

15 ANNOUNCEMENTS 

16 OFFERING— (Organ and Violin)— "Angel's Voice". . .i^row 

17 HYMN (557)— "Glorious Things" 

18 DOXOLOGY 

19 BENEDICTION 

20 POSTLUDE— (Organ)— Festival March Vincent 

26 



SUNDAY, MARCH 19TH, 7:30 O'CLOCK. 



1 PRELUDE — (Organ and Violin) — Prayer and Aria from 

"Der Freischuetz" Weber 

Mr. Alfred M. Voorhees, Violin. 

2 O, BE JOYFUL Fairbanks 

3 CREED 

4 FIRST SCRIPTURE LESSON 

The 24th Psalm : "The earth is the Lord's, and the full- 
ness thereof, the world and them that dwell therein." 

5 CONTRALTO SOLO— "Zion" 

Miss Louise Klencke. 

6 SECOND SCRIPTURE LESSON 

From a part of the Seventh Chapter of Revelation, be- 
ginning at the ninth verse. 

7 HYMN (205)— "All Hail the Power" 

8 PRAYER— The Pastor 

"Let us unite in prayer : O, Thou great and eternal God who 
art our Heavenly Father, we bless Thee for the revelation of Thy- 
self to us in such blessed character in Thy Word, and especially in 
Thy Son, Jesus Christ, through whom Thou hast bestowed unto us 
redemption. 

We come to Thee this night, our Father, to return Thee thanks 
for this open way that Thou hast opened up for us, and that Thou 
hast marked out this way for us. We thank Thee for all the 

27 



g-ifls of Thy Providence which Thou hast granted to us in this 
world. We thank Thee that the labor of the past has brought all 
these graces unto us. We come with our tribute of praise and of 
gratitude for this house given to us through those labors. We thank 
Thee that Thou hast made us to come and join forces with Jesus 
Christ. We comie to ask Thee that the spirit of Christ may come to 
us in our lives, and we pray Thee that Thou wilt bless us in these 
exercises as we progress through them during this week, that we 
may be able to spread abroad Thy truth and that peace which passeth 
knowledge. 

We come to rejoice in the kindness and in the grace of God in 
which we stand tonight. We thank Thee for this Sanctuary. We 
thank Thee for all that have attained in the days of the past, unto a 
consecrated memory by its precious ordinances. We thank Thee 
to-night that we may come to know that Thou art the same yester- 
day, to-day and forever, and we come to invoke now, that divine 
blessing to rest upon the exercises in the midst of which we are 
engaged to-night, and upon all the exercises upon which we have 
engaged to-day, and upon all the exercises in which we shall engage 
in the days that are to come. And wilt Thou grant Thy grace to us 
that we may be drawn to the Christ? Oh, that we may be able to 
invite the Christ here and now in our heart of hearts as we worship 
Thee to-night, our Father ; we would worship Thee in spirit and in 
truth. We come to worship Thee, O Thou Holy Spirit of God. We 
pray that Thou wilt show the things of Christ to us to-night, through 
our dark understanding, that Thy glory may be enhanced. 

And now grant Thy blessing, we pray Thee, to rest upon us 
while we are here. Bless Thy servant, who comes to us with a mes- 
sage. May it be productive of good in our lives. We pray Thee 
that Thy blessing may rest upon all the exercises in which we have 
engaged to-day, and may it be a day that will long be remembered 
by us, and be for the advancement and the uplifting of the Church 
of God in the hearts and in the lives of men. Hear us in our prayer. 
Lead us and guide us through all the journey of our lives, and save 
us at last, unto that great salvation which Thou will enable us to 
share in and secure through Jesus, Thy dear Son, even that resurrec- 
tion glory, forevermore. And to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will 
we give the praise of our redemption, forever Amen 

9 OFFERTORY— (Organ and Violin)— "Chant sans Pa- 
roles" Tschaikowsky 

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10 HYMN (601)— "Arise, O King", 

11 ADDRESS 



Henry Whittemore. 

GRAVESEND THE "CITY OF REFUGE" FOR THE 

OPPRESSED AND PERSECUTED OF GOD'S 

PEOPLE. 

Almost from the beginning of the settlement of this part of 
Long Island, the little town of Gravesend became a place of refuge 
for the oppressed and persecuted of God's people, and the founders 
of this Church were the first to proclaim the principle of civil and 
religious liberty, and this principle, which formed the corner-stone 
of the spiritual edifice, has been faithfully and fearlessly main- 
tained from that time to the present. They were encouraged and 
strengthened in their eflforts by Lady Moody, who, deprived of her 
civil rights in England, sought refuge in New England, whence she 
was subsequently banished because of her friendship for the Quakers 
and her refusal to accept the religious dogmas of the Puritans. 
She received from the Dutch Government of New Netherlands a 
grant of land on Long Island which formed a part of the Town of 
Gravesend, and she thus became one of its founders as well as one 
of the founders of civil and religious liberty in America. 

And Abram said unto Lot : "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, 
between me and thee and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, 
for li'e he brethren." 

"Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray 
thee, from me ; if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the 
right." 

This was the spirit that animated the founders of the Jewish 
nation, the custodians of God's written Word inscribed on tables of 
stone. This principle was proclaimed by the Great Teacher in what 
is known as the Golden Rule : "As ye would that others should do 
unto you, do ye also in like manner unto them." And also in his 
interpretation of the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with 
all thy mind, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

It seems incredible to us of the present age that the professed 
followers of the meek and lowly Jesus could ever have been guilty 
of the cruelties practised against those who differed with them in 

29 



their religious belief, and whose only crime was that they worshipped 
God according to the dictates of their own conscience and willingly 
accorded to others the same privilege. 

The spirit of persecution and religious intoleration was born 
with the Christian Church. It was first manifested in John, the 
"Beloved Disciple." (Mark IX, 38.) "And John answered Him, 
saying : 'Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name and we 
forbade him because he followeth not us.' " "But Jesus said : 
'Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my 
name. For he that is not against us is on our part.' " 

When the Puritans, the Non-Conformists of England, fled 
from religious persecution and settled in New England, they de- 
clared: "The earth is the Lord's and we are His chosen people." 
And they assumed the right to interpret the Word of God for them- 
selves, but all other Christian believers must accept their interpre- 
tation of it, or suffer such punishment as they chose to inflict. 
Against Baptists and Quakers, Catholics and Episcopalians, they 
hurled their anathemas, and forced them to leave under threats of 
imprisonment or whipping, or other cruelties no less barbarous than 
those practised on the early Christians in the Apostolic age. 

Rev. Mr. Upham, in his history of Sir Henry Vane, says : "Our 
fathers were guilty of great inconsistencies in persecuting the fol- 
lowers of Mrs. Hutchinson, the Quakers and others, inasmuch as 
they settled the country in order to secure themselves from perse- 
cution. They were often reproached as having contended wrong- 
fully for the rights of conscience when they were themselves suf- 
ferers, and as then turning against others and violating their rights 
of conscience as soon as they had the power and the opportunity 
to do so." 

There are many apologists at the present day for the Puritans 
of New England, but they must be judged by their acts. "By their 
works ye shall know them." 

In 1640 the Court of Plymouth ordered that if any should 
bring into that jurisdiction a Quaker, ranter, or other notorious 
heretic, he should, upon the order of a magistrate, return such per- 
son to the place whence he came, upon the penalty of twenty-five 
shillings for every week such person should remain there after 
warning. 

In 1652 it was enacted that no Quaker should be entertained 
within that government under the penalty of five pounds for every 
default, or whipping. In 1657 the Court of Massachusetts imposed 

30 



a fine of one hundred pounds on anyone bringing a Quaker into 
that jurisdiction, and a Quaker who returned after thus being ban- 
ished to have his ear cut off ; for a second offense to lose the other 
ear. Every Quaker woman so returning to be severely zuhipped, 
and for a third offense to have her tongue bored through with a hot 
iron. All this in the name of Christ ! 

Two hundred and fifty years ago the fires of religious perse- 
cution, lit by the Puritans of New England, were kindled in our 
own Town of Gravesend, and spread with amazing rapidity through- 
out the entire island. The efforts of the so-called Christian rulers 
and magistrates were particularly directed against the Quakers or 
Friends — the most exemplary, the most gentle, and the most loving 
of all Christians of that period. 

The early Dutch ministers and ecclesiastical authorities of New 
Amsterdam seem to have been imbued with the same spirit of 
religious intolerance that characterized the Puritans of New Eng- 
land, having "a zeal not according to knowledge." 

Rev. John Megapolensis, in a letter to the Classis of Amster- 
dam, dated March i6th, 1655, says: "For we have here Papists, 
Mennonites and Lutherans among the Dutch ; also many Puritans 
or Independents, and many Atheists, and various other servants 
of Baal among the English under this Government, who conceal 
themselves under the name of Christians ; it would create a still 
greater confusion if the obstinate and immovable Jews came to settle 
here." 

By an ordinance made in 1656, anyone preaching doctrines othei 
than those authorized by the Synod was finable one hundred 
guilders, and every one attending thereon, twenty-five guilders. In 
this spirit, in 1656, Governor Stuyvesant imprisoned several Luther- 
ans, and in 1658 banished a clergyman of that Qiurch. 

The Classis of Amsterdam, in a letter to Rev. Megapolensis, 
says : "We learn from your letter that the Lutherans are very rest- 
less ; that they hinder the pure doctrine and obstruct its course, 
requesting permission to hold public divine services for themselves, 
and to the end that they may have a Lutheran pastor from Holland." 

This request was denied by the authorities. 

The rigid enforcement of the decrees of the Dutch Reformed 
Church brought forth a protest from the Directors of the Dutch 
West India Company, dated June 14th, 1656, addressed to the 
"Honorable, Virtuous, Pious, Dear Faithful," in which they say : 
"We have seen and heard with displeasure that against our orders 

31 



of the 15th of February, 1655, issued at the request of the Jewish 
or Portuguese nation, you have forbidden them to trade to Fort 
Orange and the South River ; also the purchase of real estate which 
is granted to them without difficulty here in this country. And we 
wish it had not been done, and that you had obeyed our orders which 
you must always execute punctually and with more respect ; Jews 
or Portuguese people, however, shall not be employed in any 
public service in any city to which they are admitted, nor allowed 
to have open retail shops ; but they may quietly and peacefully 
carry on their business as before, and exercise in all quietness their 
religion within their houses, for which end they must, without 
doubt, endeavor to build their houses close together in a convenient 
place on one or the other side of New Amsterdam at their own 
choice, as they have done here. 

"We should also have been better pleased if you had not pub- 
lished the placat against the Lutherans, a copy of which you sent 
■us, and committed them to prison ; for it has always been our 
intention to treat them quietly and leniently. Hereafter, therefore, 
you will not publish such a similar placat without our knowledge, 
but you must pass it over quietly and let them have free religious 
exercises in their houses." 

Policy dictated a lenient course toward the Jews and the Luther- 
ans as there were men of influence and prominence among them, 
but their cruel and inhuman treatment of the Quakers brought 
forth no protest from her ecclesiastical superiors. 

Against the Quakers who had by their peaceful and prudent 
conduct made many converts in some of the eastern towns of the 
island, particularly at Jamaica and Flushing, the temper of the 
Governor was violent and revengeful. Orders in writing, or pla- 
cards, were issued by the town authorities, forbidding them to 
entertain members of the odious sect, and the ordinance of 1662 
provided that beside the Reformed religion no conventicles should 
be holden in houses, barns, ships, woods or fields, under the penalty 
of fifty guilders for each person, man, woman or child, attending, 
for the first offense, double for the second, and quadruple for the 
third, and arbitrary correction for every other. The importation of 
seditious and seducing books, and the lodging of persons arriving 
in the province without reporting themselves, and taking the oath of 
allegiance, subjected the offender to severe penalties. 

In the latter part of 1657 the Sheriff of Gravesend charged 
John Tilton with harboring a Quaker woman. On the eighth of 

32 



June, 1658, a written answer was received from John Tilton, late 
Clerk of Gravesend, that he gave lodgings to a Quaker woman. 
The official account of this is found in the action taken by the 
authorities. 

"In Council, July loth, 1658. Present, the Director-General, 
Peter Stuyvesant, and the Hon. Narcissus de Sille and Peter Tom- 
linson. 

"The charge against John Tilton by the Attorney-General for 
lodging a banished Quaker woman, being read, together with the 
written answer of John Tilton in his own defense, the following 
sentence was pronounced : 

"Whereas, John Tilton, residing at Gravesend, now under 
arrest, has dared to provide a Quaker woman with lodging, who 
was banished out of New Netherlands, so, too, seven other persons 
of her adherents belonging to the abominable sect of the Quakers, 
which is directly contrary to the orders and placards of the Director- 
General and Council of New Netherlands, and therefore as an 
exam.ple for others, ought to be severely punished ; however, having 
taken in consideration the supplication of the arrested Tilton, in 
which he declares that the aforesaid Quaker woman came to his 
house with other neighbors during his absence, and further reflected 
on his former conduct, so it is that the Director-General in New 
Netherlands, doing justice in the name of the high and mighty Lords, 
the States General of the United Netherlands, and the noble Direct- 
ors of the privileged West India Company, condemn the aforesaid 
John Tilton in an amende of twelve pounds Flanders, with costs 
and masses of Justice to be applied, one-third in behalf of the At- 
torney-General, and one-third in behalf of the Sheriff of Gravesend, 
and the remaining third as it ought to be. 

On the 5th of October, 1662, John Tilton and Mary, his wife, 
having been received and committed before the Governor and Coun- 
cil of New Amsterdam of having entertained Quakers and fre- 
quented their conventicles, were condemned and ordered to depart 
from the province before the 20th of November following, upon pain 
of corporal punishment. It is presumed that through the influence 
of Lady Moody, the last sentence was either reversed or commuted 
for the payment of a fine, as they continued to reside at Gravesend 
for the remainder of their lives. 

"The principal charge against Goody Tilton, as his wife was 
known, was having, like a sorceress, gone from door to door to hire 
and induce the people, yea, even young girls, to join the Quakers. 

33 



Her husband had been fined on the 19th of September preceding, 
for permitting Quakers to quake at his house in Gravesend. Thus 
our own town of Gravesend became the centre of reHgious perse- 
cution, and it is noteworthy that the first gun fired in defence of 
civil and religous liberty, was fired by the descendants of these same 
people, a fact that most historians seem to have overlooked. 

"From the first appearance of the Quakers on Long Island it 
appears to have been the determination of Governor Stuyvesant to 
prevent, by every possible means, the dissemination of doctrines 
which he denounced as 'seditious, heretical and abominable,' and 
the whole sect was always spoken of with the utmost contempt and 
with the most opprobious epithets. Among the first that fell under 
his displeasure was a Mr. Hodgson, who was charged with holding 
conventicles, and proceeding towards Hempstead he was seized by 
order of Richard Gildersleeve, a Puritan magistrate, and committed 
to prison. Information having been sent to the city, a guard was 
ordered to bring him before the Governor and Council. Two 
women who had entertained Hodgson were also taken, one of whom 
had a young child. They were put in a cart, and Hodgson, being 
fastened behind it, was dragged through the woods by night to the 
city and thrown into the dungeon at Fort Amsterdam. On being 
brought out the next day, he was examined, condemned and sen- 
tenced to two years' hard labor at a wheelbarrow with a negro, or to 
pay a fine of six hundred gilders. With the latter alternative he 
was enther unable or unwilling to comply, and was again confined 
without permission to see or converse with anyone. Being after- 
wards chained to a wheelbarrow and commanded to work he refused 
to do so, and was, by order of the Court, beaten by a negro with a 
tarred rope till he fainted ; the punishment was continued at inter- 
vals to one hundred lashes, with the same result. After having 
been for some months confined, and frequently scourged as before, 
he was liberated at the solicitation of the Governor's sister and 
banished from the province. 

Rev. Johannes Megapolensis and Samuel Dresius were greatly 
alarmed in 1657 in consequence of the arrival of a shipload of 
Quakers in the harbor. A letter dated 5th of August, 1657, ad- 
dressed to Reverend, Pious, Very Learned Fathers, and Brethren in 
Christ, states that : "When the master of the ship came on shore and 
appeared before the Director-General, he rendered him no respect, 
but stood still, with his hat firm on his head, as if he were a goat. 
The Director-General could with difficulty get a word from any of 

34 



them. He only learned that they had come from London in about 
eight weeks. When asked as to the condition of Holland, France, 
etc., hardly a word could be drawn from them. At last information 
was gained that it was a ship with Quakers on board. The fol- 
lowing morning early they hoisted anchor and sailed eastward 
towards Hellgate, as we call it, in the direction of New England, 
We suppose they went to Rhode Island, for that is the receptacle 
for all sorts of riff-raff people, and is nothing else than the sewer 
of New England. All the cranks of New England retire thither. 
We suppose they will settle there as they are not tolerated by the 
Independents in any other place. That year there also arrived at 
Boston, in New England, several of these Quakers, but they were 
immediately put in prison and then sent back in the same ship. 
Probably fearing the same thing, these Quakers came this way and 
then passed on. But they did not pass from us so hastily as not 
to leave some evidence of their having been here, for they left be- 
hind two strong young women. As soon as the ship had fairly de- 
parted these began to quake and go into a frenzy, and cry out 
loudly in the middle of the street that men should repent, for the 
Day of Judgment was at hand. Our people not knowing what was 
the matter ran to and fro, while one cried "Fire!" and another some- 
thing else. The Fiscal, with an accompanying officer, seized them 
both by the head and led them to prison. We perceive from this 
circumstance that the devil is the same everywhere. The same 
instruments which he uses to disturb the churches in Europe, he 
employs here in America. We trust that our God will baffle the 
designs of the devil and preserve us in truth and bring to nothing 
these machinations of Satan." 

We note that he says "our God," and evidently intends to con- 
vey the idea that we — the Dutch — are His chosen people. While 
perhaps not as fanatical as the Puritans, the Dutch authorities arro- 
gated to themselves the right to interpret the Word of God for others 
as well as for their own people, and freedom of conscience was not a 
part of their creed. 

"The people of Flushing entered a strong protest against the 
command forbidding the entertainment of Quakers and others who 
advocated freedom of worship, in which they say : 

"You have been pleased to send up unto us a certain Prohibi- 
tion or Command that we should not receive or entertain any of 
those people called Quakers, because they are by some supposed to 
be seducers of the people ; for our part we cannot condemn them in 

35 



this case, neither can we stretch out our hands against them to pun- 
ish, banish or prosecute them, for out of Christ, God is a consuming 
fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 
We desire, therefore, in this case not to judge lest we be judged, 
neither condemn lest we be condemned, but rather let every man 
stand or fall by his own. 

"The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to 
Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered the sons of Adam, 
which is the glory of the outward state of Holland ; so love, peace 
and liberty extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war 
and bondage ; and because our Saviour saith it is impossible but 
that offenses will come, but woe be unto him by whom they cometh ; 
our desire is not to offend one of his little ones in whatsoever form, 
name or title he appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, 
Baptist or Quaker, but shall be glad to see anything of God in any 
of them, desiring to do unto all men as we desire all men should do 
unto us, which is the true law both of Church and State. Therefore, 
if any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in con- 
science lay violent hands upon them, but give them free ingress into 
our towns and houses, as God shall persuade our consciences, and in 
this we are true subjects of both the Church and State, and this is 
according to the Patent and Charter of our Town, given unto us 
in the name of the States-General, which we are not willing to 
infringe and violate, but shall hold to our patent." 

In this dignified and spirited document are embraced the names 
of thirty of the principal inhabitants of the town, including Henry 
and John Townsend of Rusdorp, now Jamaica. 

It breathes the true spirit of Christianity as taught by its Foun- 
der, and, moreover, it assumes the right of protest in accordance 
with their chartered rights ; and only one blinded by passion and 
prejudice could fail to be impressed with the wisdom and justice 
of the protest, as well as by the humble Christian spirit whicii 
characterized its authors. 

This document was presented the next day in person by Tobias 
Friake, Sheriff, one of the signers, — all honor to him for his bold- 
ness and courage. Governor Stuyvesant was highly incensed, and 
ordered his Attorne3'-General, Narcissus de Sille — as narrow-minded 
as his august master — to arrest the Sheriff. Farrington and Noble, 
two of the magistrates, signers also, were taken and imprisoned. 
Hart, poor, weak coward, admitted writing the paper, saying he was 
requested to do so, as containing the sentiments of the village meet- 

36 



ing at the house of Michael ]\iihior. His weak excuse and cowardly 
demeanor did not save him from imprisonment. Better, a thousand 
times, had he boldly asserted his rights and defied the authorities, 
than place himself in such an humiliating position. 

On the 27th of December, 1657, the magistrates of Rusdorp 
informed the Governor that the Quakers and their adherents were 
lodged and entertained, and unrelentingly corresponded in said 
village at the house of Henry Townsend, who, they say, formally 
convocated a conventicle of the Quakers and assisted in it, for which 
he had been condemned on the 15th of September, 1657, in an 
amende of eight Pounds Flanders, that had not been paid. He was, 
therefore, cited to appear January 8th, 1658. John Townsend, 
who had also been summoned June loth, on being asked if he had 
gone with Hart to persuade Farrington to sign the remonstrance, 
answered that he had been at Flushing and visited Farrington as 
an old acquaintance, and that he also had been at Gravesend, but 
was not in company with the banished female Quaker. The Court, 
having suspicion of his favoring the Quakers, he was ordered to 
find bail for twelve pounds, to appear when summoned. 

On the same day, Noble and Farrington were brought up and 
made verbal confession of being seduced and inveigled by Friake, 
and, promising to conduct themselves with more prudence in the 
future, were discharged on paying costs. Poor, weak mortals — 
objects of pity rather than contempt. 

"The trials which followed," says one writer, "may well be 
considered as a perfect mockery of judicial proceedings, and a bur- 
lesque on the administration of justice ; inflated language, mixed 
with barbarous Latin, unmeaning technicalities, and affected cere- 
monies, are manifest at every step, and can produce in the minds of 
intelligent people only disgust. This feeling is increased by the 
fact that the accused were denied the privilege of counsel or even 
of defending themselves." 

On the 15th of January, 1658, Henry Townsend was again 
brought before the Council, and the farce ended by the Attorney- 
General declaring that, as the persons had before, and now again 
trespassed and treated with contempt the placards of the Director- 
General and Council in New Netherlands, in lodging Quakers, 
which he unconditionally confessed, he should, therefore, be con- 
demned in an amende of one hundred Pounds Flanders, as an ex- 
ample for other transgressors and contumacious offenders of the 
good order and placards of the Director-General and Council in New 

37 



Netherlands ; and so to remain arrested till the said amende be 
paid, besides the costs and misses of justice. On the 28th, the Sheriff 
Friake was brought from prison, "and though," says the record, 
"he confessed that he had received an order from the Director- 
General not to admit in the aforesaid village any of that heretical 
and abominable sect called Quakers, or procure them lodgings ; yet 
he did so in the face of the placard, and, what was worse, was a 
leader in composing a seditious and detestable chartabel, delivered 
by him and signed by himself and his accomplices, wherein they 
justify the abominable sect of the Quakers who treat with contempt 
all political and ecclesiastical authority, and undermine the foun- 
dations of all government and religion, maintaining and absolutely 
concluding that all sects, and principally the aforesaid heretical and 
abominable sect of Quakers, shall or ought to be tolerated, which is 
directly contrary to the aforesaid orders and placards of the Director- 
General and Council ; whereas he ought to have maintained and 
observed the execution of the aforesaid orders and placards in 
conformity to his oath, as he was in duty bound as a subaltern 
officer of the Director-General, and as Sheriff of the aforesaid village 
of Tlessingen (Flushing). He was, therefore, degraded from his 
office and sentenced to be banished or pay an amende of two hundred 
guilders. 

"On the 26th of March, 1658, Governor Stuyvesant, in order to 
prevent as much as possible the consequences of Quaker influence 
among the people, resolved to change the municipal government 
of the town of Flushing, and therefore, after formally pardoning 
the town for its mutinous resolutions, says : 

"I shall appoint a Sheriff acquainted not only with the English 
and Dutch languages, that in future there shall be chosen some of 
the most responsible and respectable of the inhabitants to be called 
tribunes and townsmen, and whom the Sheriff and magistrates shall 
consult in all cases, and that a tax of twelve stivers per morgen 
is laid on the inhabitants for the support of an orthodox minister, 
and such as do not sign a written submission to the same in six 
weeks, may dispose of their property at their pleasure and leave the 
soil of this government." 

It thus appears that not only were the people denied the right 
of worshipping God according to the dictates of their own con- 
science, but their civil rights guaranteed by the original patents. 
were by and with the authority of the Dutch Government, denied 
them, and the great principle of "no taxation without representation" 

38 



which caused the colonists to rebel against the mother country one 
hundred years later, was born of religious persecution and was 
inaugurated by the Dutch Governor Stuyvesant. 

It is interesting to note that about one hundred and twenty 
years later, on the Fourth of July, 1776, the day on which Congress 
adopted the Declaration of Independence, the first gun in defence 
of civil and religious liberty was fired on Long Island almost within 
the sound of my voice. 

The British fleet, which had recently arrived in New York Bay, 
was making preparations for the great battle fought a few weeks 
later on Long Island. The flagship Asia, swinging around with the 
tide, was brought directly in front of Denyse's Ferry, now Fort 
Hamilton. Two twelve-pound guns, which the patriots of this local- 
ity had placed there, opened fire on the British, inflicting considerable 
damage. The Asia returned the fire, which silenced the two guns 
and nearly demolished the ferry-house. The men behind the guns 
escaped, but the record of their deeds will go down to posterity, they 
having fired the first gun in defence of civil and religious liberty. 

The claim has been made that the first gun in the cause of 
American Independence was fired at Lexington, but the fact prob- 
ably has been overlooked by most historians, or perhaps deemed of 
too little importance, that when the battles of Lexington and Bunker 
Hill were fought, the colonists had no idea of separating from the 
mother country, but hoped that this rebellion, which had not even 
the semblance of a revolution, having no concerted action, would 
force the British Government to recognize their just rights. Wash- 
ington and most of the great leaders at that time were opposed to 
separation. 

"Thus to the people of Long Island, especially to those of 
Gravesend and New Utrecht, belongs the credit of striking the first 
blow in the cause of American independence and of civil and re- 
ligious liberty, and we have cause for congratulation that in this 
twentieth century every man, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, 
may 'worship God under his own vine and figtree with none to 
molest or make him afraid.' 

"Our little Church of Gravesend on this its two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary may congratulate itself that the spirit of religious 
toleration has pervaded its counsels from the beginning down to the 
present time. The examples set by its early members, whose homes 
afiforded a refuge to the persecuted Quakers, has been followed by 
their descendants, and your pastor, representing the views of the 

39 



people, gladly extends the hand of fellowship to every man in whose 
heart the love of God is the animating principle. 

"It will be but a few years at most before denominational bar- 
riers shall disappear and the watchword will be : 'Let there be no 
strife between me and thee, for we are brethren.' " 

12 ANTHEM— "Praise the Lord Brackett 

13 PRAYER— (The Pastor) 

"Let us unite in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we come to 

bless Thee for the largeness of this liberty which Thou hast put in 
our hand and in our power. We thank Thee that the day has passed 
from us when liberty of conscience was denied, when men v,-ere 
hurled unto the ground for their religious principles and their re- 
ligious works. We come to Thee to Thank Thee that we are able 
to behold the time when the glor}' of God is brought before men, 
w^hen the glory of God can be served, and His glory advanced by 
the churches and the power which Thou are giving to us in this 
world. We thank Thee that our eyes are beholding the day when 
Christ is rising in the earth, when His name is making itself heard 
in the ears of men, and we ask Thee, our Father, that by the exer- 
cises of this day and hour, we may have larger and more liberal 
views given to us, in the name of Thy Son, our Lord, Amen." 

14 HYMN (683)— "Blest be the Tie" 

15 DOXOLOGY 

16 BENEDICTION 

17 POSTLUDE (Organ) — Commemoration March Clark 



40 




Imrsi' Rkfokmeii (DriTii) Chikcii, (iRavesknd 



TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2.30 P. M. 
Rev. p. V. Van Buskirk, Presiding. 



1 PRELUDE (Organ and Violin) — "Hosanna" Granier 

Mr. Alfred M. Voorhees, Violin. 

2 ANTHEM— "King of Kings" Brackett 

3 INVOCATION— Dr. Schenck. 

"Let us unite in prayer. Almighty God, our heavenly Father, 
we thank Thee for this place of worship with all its holy memories, 
with all its blessed inspirations and its glorious hopes. We thank 
Thee, God of our fathers, that Thou art our God, Thou are the God 
of our children ; Thou hast spoken to the thousand generations of 
those that love Thee and kept Thy Commandments as the genera- 
tions of Thy followers pass over the stage of the earth and on to the 
home above, and we worship Thee, the God worshipped here in days 
gone by, to be worshipped here in days to come. We worship Thee 
to-day ; forgive us our sins ; give us Thy grace in abundant meas- 
ure. Inspired by Thy Holy Spirit may all the memories of the past, 
may all the joys of the present, may all the hopes for the future be 
offered to Thee now in loving adoration and worship. May Thy 
Spirit so be shed abroad in our hearts that for us it may be an 
exceedingly great and good thing to worship Thee. We ask it for 
His sake who has taught us to pray 

'Our Father Who art in Heaven' 
Peace be v/ith you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour, 
Jesus Christ. Amen." 

4 PSALTER— Psalm 96. 

5 FEMALE TRIO~"The Lord is my Shepherd" Bargiel 

Miss Louise Klencke. Miss Irene Storm. 

Mrs. James Van Siclen. 

41 



6 SCRIPTURE LESSON— "Blessed is the man that walketh not 

in the councils of the ungodly." 

(From the First Psalm.) 

7 CONTRALTO SOLO— Tn Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust." 

Max Spicker 
Miss Augusta Koster. 

8 HYMN (742)— "Watchman tell us" 



9 ADDRESS— Donald Sage Mackay, D.D., The Collegiate 
Church, Fifth Avenue and Forty-eighth Street, New York 
City. 

"The Representative of the Old Church in Manhattan in 1628." 

Brethren and Friends — Greeting. 

It is not only a pleasure but a very great privilege to be here 
this afternoon to tender to you, however unworthily on my part, 
the kindly greetings and goodwill of the Mother Church, not only 
of Greater New York but of Protestant America. The Collegiate 
Church, dating from 1628, with a continuous history from that 
time, winning souls for God in the great life of our American Metro- 
polis, joins with you to-day in this celebration. We rejoice with 
you in this service of commemoration, and as you interpret the sacred 
memories of the past into your prayers for a deepening and an aug- 
menting of the Divine Blessing in the years to come, the Collegiate 
Church adds her fervent "Amen !" And may I also, dear friends, 
personally express to your beloved pastor my hearty congratulations 
on his continued success and on his devoted faithfulness to you 
during these many years. 

It is no part of my purpose this afternoon to reply to the con- 
tention of a certain learned man who has sought to limit the sphere 
of human usefulness, but of this I am very sure : if we count life 
by its power to achieve, then we may felicitate your pastor upon 
many years of service with you still. 

These commemoration services, which grow more common as 
the years pass on, have not only a distinct religious value, but they 
have a decided educational influence. I am glad that they are 
becoming more common, because they help us to realize how other 
congregations lived as we are doing, enriching the present by those 

42 



sacred memories from times long past. It is good to feel that in 
our passion for what is new, we are keeping before us this priceless 
heritage of what is old. 

There surely can be no greater calamity for a people than to 
be ignorant of its past. It is a danger to which we as a country 
are exposed especially, because of that tremendous tide of immi- 
gration that has almost submerged us to-day. Nowhere do we see 
that more than in Greater New York. Within the last two years 
one million six hundred thousand immigrants arrived at these shores, 
and of that vast number no fewer than one-third declared the State 
of New York as their place of future residence. Of that number 
nearly fifty per cent, were entered either as laborers or with no 
definite occupation at all. It is inevitable that these new forces 
forming into our national life, will not only be ignorant of, but 
absolutely indifferent to the religious principles upon which our 
Republic is founded. Therefore, services like these bring before 
the public mind and deepen within the hearts and consciences of our 
children how much they owe to the past and how great a duty 
devolves upon them to perpetuate in the future, these vital principles 
which we have inherited from our forefathers. 

It is a long call to two hundred and fifty years ago, and, no 
doubt, in the historical addresses which have been made to you, and 
which will be given later, the dominant note will be that of contrast 
between conditions as they existed upon this island two hundred 
and fifty years ago, and as they exist to-day. I think it just possible 
that we may exaggerate that contrast. We hear occasional com- 
ments, for example, on the vices of the early Dutch settlers here. 
We may exaggerate these faults so that we shall be blinded to the 
virtues and the magnificent principles which these men and women 
incarnated. Of course, many conditions existing here on Long 
Island two hundred and fifty years ago would be impossible and 
perhaps, ludicrous in our time. We learn, for instance, when we read 
one of the records of the Consistory of the Old Church in the Fort, 
that a certain woman was called upon to take her stand before the 
Stadt House and publicly apologize to Dominie Bogardus for having 
called him a liar. Well, perhaps there was a healthy influence in 
that kind of discipline. 

The next year I find that the good wife of the Dominie was 
summoned before the Consistory to explain a certain act of care- 
lessness, namely, that in crossing the street on one certain muddy 
day she ventured to lift her skirt above the heel of her boot ! 

43 



If you were to ask me wiiat was the ditterence in the rcUgious 
life of men in 162S or 1655 and the religious life in Greater Xew 
York to-day, I should put it this way : religious life then was a 
positive influence; religion to-day is a passing incident. In these 
early times it was the influential view of religion that impressed 
men. To-day it is merely incidental in religion. What is the result ? 
It means that we are losing in faith ; it means that conscience itself 
does not have the same authority in living that it had then. For 
example, how many of us know that the very first entry in the 
^Magistrates' Records of the City of New Amsterdam, the very 
first paragraph in the Civic }*Iinutes, is a prayer drawn up by our 
old Dutch Dominie of that day, for the Magistrates of New York. 
The prayer is in Dutch, but it has been translated into English and 
might, I think, be framed and hung up upon the walls of every 
court, of every Alderman's Chamber, and of every public office, as 
a reminder of what public office meant in the civic life of our city 
two hundred and fifty years ago. 

In the prayer there occurs such a sentence : "Almighty God, 
so mercifully inspire us that all that we do may be for the defence 
of the public good and for the maintenance of Church, that we may 
be respected by them that do well, and a terror of evil-doers." 
There was the kind of civic ideal voiced by the Church, governed 
by religion, which existed when this Church of yours first came 
into being. 

It is when we face facts like tliese, when we, so to speak, steep 
ourselves in the spirit of these early days, however much we may 
smile at the queer customs and all the rest of it, of your forefathers, 
we recognize that in looking back across the vista of the years, there 
are truths to be re-learned, there are principles to be re-interpreted 
and there is a gospel of righteousness to be re-preached v/hich we 
may learn from them. What, then, is the practical outcome of this 
service? To glorify the past? Yes, surely! But not simply to be 
content with that. 

There comes before me as I speak to you one of the grandest, 
most magnificent scenes. I think, in all human history, one of the 
immortal events, epoch-making in the life of the nation : 

A dim November afternoon, a vast concourse of spectators, 
and there, standing before them, gaunt, unkempt, if you will, but 
with the light of a deathless purpose in his eyes, stands, perhaps the 
greatest figure of the Ninteenth Century, the President of this 
Nation, as he utters words that commemorate the battleground of 

44 



Gettysburg-. No more soul-inspiring words were ever uttered than 
those which Lincohi spoke, almost on the inspiration of the moment, 
on that November afternoon at Gettssljurg. And what was their 
purport? Let them be written upon the heart and conscience of 
every true American: "Not to consecrate the past, for that was in 
a sense impossible, but to consecrate ourselves to the future through 
the inspiration of the past." Therefore, it appears to me that these 
services this afternoon ought to bring every m.ember of this Church 
to that definite point : Why am I an heir of the past ? Why am I 
among those who have entered into these privileges which my fore- 
fathers have made possible ? What am I going to do to hand on these 
privileges for the years to come? It is a personal question. It is a 
personal appeal, my friends, for a re-dedication of ourselves. 

Now, I hesitated to use that word "consecration" simply because 
for a great many people, a great many good people in these days, 
it has become almost a term of cant. The cheapening of a word is 
the depreciation of an idea. The moment a word becomes current 
coin in the Kingdom of Cant, it becomes counterfeit in the Kingdom 
of Truth. A great many people have counterfeited this word "con- 
secration," and cheapened the truth behind it, and yet I know no 
other word which will embrace that peculiar duty which these ser- 
vices should bring to the hearts and consciences of every man and 
woman, old and young, in this Church. What is consecration? It 
is the human side of a spiritual experience of which sanctification 
is the divine side. That is to say, through our consecration to God 
to-day, we become sanctified by God for eternal service. Sanctifi- 
cation is that condition of life in which every power, every energy 
we have, has been interpenetrated and transfused by the spirit of 
God. 

Do you suppose these services would ever be forgotten in the 
life of this Church if each one of us passed through such an ex- 
perience? Do you suppose that the influence of these services 
would ever be forgotten in the history of this community if they 
brought to you and to your Pastor, and to every member of the 
Church, that condition of life in which every power that you possess 
w^as interpenetrated by the spirit of God ? 

This duty of consecration rests upon a great need. And what 
is that need? I needn't remind you, brethren, that in these times 
there is a deep expectancy over the churches. Never within the 
present generation has there been a time when so many hearts have 
been steadily looking out towards a fresh revelation of God's power. 

45 



Over all the world there is a kind of hush as though we were wait- 
ing to hear the beating of the wings of God's spirit. It is coming. 
Here and there you can see the outflashings of God's dawn of 
new power. 

Why should not this Church in this year of its commemoration 
and consecration become a center of this new utterance of God's 
message to the world ? It may be so, and you can make it so, if you 
realize what the great need is which that consecration will supply. 
The need is spiritual power, power to flash through all the wires 
of our modern mechanism in church life. 

Not for a moment would I disparage this wonderful age of 
religious organization. Not for a moment would I say anything to 
depreciate our work of committees and societies and auxiliaries, and 
all the other things which we have crowded into our modern church 
life. But we may have mechanical efficiency with spiritual deficiency. 
What we want is not preaching of God's power, but the doing of His 
works. 

I remember once climbing one of our Scotch hills. At a great 
height — some four thousand four hundred feet — and near the sum- 
mit we came to a little cleft, and there, in the hollow of the rocks 
reflecting the perfect blue of the sky and the shimmering light of the 
sun was a little pool of icecold water. There it lay, placid, clear and 
cold, in this cleft high upon the mountain top. Then I noticed that 
the water leaped over a fissure of rocks, increasing its power until 
it reached the valley beneath in leaps and bounds. Then I noticed 
how the river flowed on until by-and-by it reached a water-wheel 
and it set the water-wheel in motion so that it became the instrument 
of man's necessity. The water that lay up yonder, silent, cold, 
placid, became down there the channel of power and the minister 
of human needs. 

In one of Paul's great prayers for the Ephesian Church, he 
prays that they may know the power of God to them who believe 
according to the working of the power of God's might. In that 
prayer there are four distinct words, any one of which might be 
translated "power," and yet each of which means something dif- 
ferent from the others. It gathers up the spiritual meaning of that 
scene which I have just described. First, we have a word defining 
the power of God uplifted above human necessity. Far back in the 
eternities God's power lies placid and quiet like the water at rest in 
the mountain lake. Then there is the word which speaks of that 
Divine energy expressing itself in some mighty act of creative power 

46 



as the water bursts through the rocks in mighty torrent. Then 
there is the third word describing the Divine power in settled con- 
tinuance in the constant forces of Providence like the river in its 
steady, resistless current over the plain. Lastly, there is the fourth 
word translated "power," which in the Greek is represented by one 
word defining God's power as it touches a human soul, as the water 
touching the water-wheel sets it in motion. 

So, in answer to your prayers and through your consecration 
to-day, you lift your soul into living touch with the very power of 
God, as the water-wheel was set in motion by the water in the distant 
mountain cleft. The mighty power of God comes into direct contact 
with your life. Are we willing in this day of God's power? Are 
we ready to make this service supreme and practical by the opening 
of our lives to this divine power? 

Oh, brethren, we have not yet touched the fringe of our own 
possibilities until the power of God lays hold of us. Some one has 
said that the human brain when it dies, even of the cleverest man, 
shows that only a third of its power has been developed. Men of 
science tell us that two-thirds of the brain cells are never used — 
die through lack of use. Who can tell how much of spiritual power 
unused by us would be set in motion if we would let God help us? 
There would be no limit to our possibilities. 

Away back in the City of Glasgow, where I was born and 
brought up, in the center of the city's life there is an old-fashioned 
churchyard. It is filled up now and there are no more burials there, 
but if you chance to go into that old churchyard you will find a 
humble stone with a very simple inscription upon it. It marks the 
resting place of a factory girl, a young woman who earned but a 
very few shillings a week, who lived alone in a single room, but who 
devoted her life to the service of God. She gathered together on 
Sunday mornings a few of the rough factory boys and she taught 
them, and she became interested in them with her means, small as 
they were, until these boys grew up to manhood, and until each one 
of them become a member of the Church of Christ. 

That class of factory boys became the nucleus of a vast move- 
ment that took root in not merely the city of Glasgow, but in many 
of the cities of Scotland and England. 

That was her work ; she never saw its possibilities. She died, 
and on her tombstone these words are written — words, you remem- 
ber, that were spoken of John the Baptist: "He did no miracle, but 
all things that he said of Jesus were true, and many believed on him 

47 



there." And so in this quiet burying ground these words tell the 
story of a simple woman's life : "She did no miracle, but all things 
that she said of Jesus were true." 

So, friends, while we thank God for the past, and while we re- 
joice with you to-day in the commemoration of these two hundred 
and fifty years of the goodness and mercy of God in your Church 
life, while we congratulate you upon this beautiful building, and on 
all these services of commemoration, yet let us remember that the 
call of God is not simply to the past but to the present to make 
religion not an incident but an influence, and to let your lives be 
the gauge of God's power in this great day of quickening, whose 
results in the near future none of us can fathom. None of us can 
dare measure the future, but may God make you willing in the day 
of His power." 

10 SOPRANO SOLO— "I will extol Thee, O Lord!"... Co.yfa 
Mrs. J.\mes Van Siclen. 



II ADDRESS — F. S. Schenck, D.D., Theological Seminary, New 
Brunswick, N. J. — " The Representative of the Theological 
Seminary of the Reformed Church in America." 

Dear Pastor, Members and Friends of the Cluireh at Gravesend: 

It is a great honor and privilege to bring to you the greetings 
and congratulations and the good wishes of the Theological Semi- 
nary of the Reformed Church of New Brunswick. 

This is a very old seminary; it was organized in 1784. It 
is the oldest seminary for theological instruction on the conti- 
nent of America, and, therefore, it is suitable that I should 
bear its greeting to this, one of the oldest churches in America of 
our denomination, and it is especially suitable since it is a part of 
your work, a part of the great work of this Church. You haven't 
thought of that, perhaps, during these days of sweet memories and 
great inspirations. Perhaps you have tried to imagine how much 
good the Church of Gravesend has been doing for two hundred 
and fifty years in the community where it has been placed, in the 
civil, and the educational, and the religious influences that have gone 
forth from this Church here in this place, and you can't overestimate 
the Church as a sacred source of blessed influence. It meets men 

48 



in the holiest moments of their lives, in their tenderest feelings, in 
their highest hopes, and shelters them and prepares them for living 
here on the earth as good citizens, as living for the community, and 
then it passes them on as through an open gateway into the glorious 
heaven of Christ's presence. 

Two hundred and fifty years of that kind of work ! Who can 
estimate its power and its importance? 

Now, one of the features of this work : You, with kindred 
churches, have established a Theological Seminary for the education 
of Christ's ministers, and that Seminary has, during its hundred 
and more years of existence, sent out over eleven hundred ministers. 
Some of them have come to minister to you in your pulpit ; others 
of them have gone to other portions of our own land ; others of 
them have gone away over the seas to heathen lands, to preach the 
everlasting Gospel of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for the 
elevation of mankind, for the lifting up of the race. — And you 
have been doing it ! You haven't thought of it, perhaps, but it has 
been a part of your work, a part of the work of your fathers in the 
days that are past. Some of your sons, those related to this Church, 
at any rate, have passed through those halls and have gone to 
preach the Gospel of Christ, and some of the sons of that Seminary 
have come here to preach to you the Gospel of Christ. 

I am not, perhaps, a son of this Church, and yet I am closely 
related to it. — It is said that in 1650 a ship came from Holland, and 
I have been told by those who exaggerated perhaps, that it was a 
ship full of gold. There were a great many Hollanders upon that 
ship ; among others there were three brothers who went by the name 
of Schenck, and they settled in Flatlands, Long Island, and there 
was a mill there at Flatlands, the ruins of which existed when I was 
a lad. It was called "Schenck's Mill." Now, I think about that ship 
of gold ; it must have been a very small ship or else a very small 
load of gold, or else the Schencks held but a very small part of it. 
As far as the gold is concerned I haven't very much faith in the 
story, but as far as the Schencks are concerned, that is the time 
they came over, and they came so near by you that I fancy they must 
have had some sort of relationship with this congregation. Then, 
my mother was a Vander Veer and a Voorhees, and was related 
to the Wyckoffs, and I had an uncle, Garrett Wyckoff, who lived at 
Flatlands, and when I was a lad I heard him tell how he sometimes 
wanted to go over to that little bit of an island here — Manhattan 
Island I think they call it — (it is now enlarging itself skyward) 

49 



and the means of conveyance was a kind of a boat that was pro- 
pelled by horse-power, and he went with his loads of produce from 
the farm to this little ferry-boat, and so to the island. Now, he 
was the father-in-law of Henry Wyckofif, one of the elders of this 
Church, whom I used to visit when I was a little boy, and he was 
Ihe father of Garrett Wyckoff, one of the elders of this Church, 
who died very suddenly a little while ago, and he was the father of 
Henry Wyckofif, who, I understand, has been a deacon of this 
Church. So you see that I am related to the Church and to the 
community very closely. 

Now, I want to speak to you a little this afternoon upon that 
which we do not ofttimes think of. It is that God's work, if we can 
only link our work to it, goes on, and then our work becomes greater 
than we can possibly imagine. These fathers who founded the 
Church did more than they thought for when they founded the 
Church. They were thinking of their own privileges, their own 
place of worship, their own clergy, their own iniluence, and it was 
but a little thing, perhaps, but they have worked more than they 
thought for because they put in not merely brick and stone and 
wood into the Church, but their own godly character ; and God took 
up that godly character and wove it into His work until it has become 
a part of the fibre and the strength of American civilization, and 
has extended beyond the little limit of the Gravesend Church of 
which they thought, beyond the little time in which they were living, 
through these two hundred and fifty years and over all this great 
city and this great land and way to the ends of the earth ; and it 
hasn't stopped yet, and it will not stop at all as long as godly char- 
acter from these godly fathers is devoted to the work of God and 
taken up by Him and woven into His great plan for the accomplish- 
ment of much good to the human race. 

That man has very rich possessions who has a godly ancestry, 
and a godly ancestry ofttimes is the strength of the race character, 
refined, ennobled, sweetened, strengthened by Christianity, and we 
who come from Holland have that, a strong race character, sweet- 
ened and ennobled by Christianity, and it is very well for us to 
sometimes think of our good qualities and our noble ancestors, at the 
same time being able to recognize the good qualities of others and 
to be attracted towards others, and when they come to us to give 
them a cordial welcome. The Dutch Church has ever been willing 
to do that, and we have here upon the platform to-day an evidence of 
it (referring to the presence of Rev. Donald Sage Mackey, D.D.). 

50 



We saw a good thing and we knew a good thing when that visitor 
from Scotland came to our Church, was received into our Church, 
and he has represented the oldest Church to you to-day. And yet 
I fancy that he is a little sorry that he wasn't a Hollander, and we 
kind of sympathize with him because he isn't a Hollander, for we 
know that in the Holland character there is something peculiarly 
fine that has been wrought into it by the great measure of good 
through the blood of nations. In the very olden time it is said that 
the Batavi were never conquered by Rome. I guess that is so of 
Scotland, but Rome got nearer to the Batavi than Scotland. Scot- 
land was so far off that Rome couldn't very well get at it, but 
Rome got at the Batavi but couldn't conquer ; that is saying a great 
deal for it. 

Then those Hollanders, through their enterprise and their per- 
severance and their vigilance, by capturing a land from the sea and 
holding possession of it in spite of all the storms of a northern ocean 
and making it the garden land of the earth ; that is the native force 
of character ; that is the strength of the Holland blood. Then it 
was sweetened and ennobled by Christianity. Word was brought to 
them of the Gospel of Christ, and they received it ; and even before 
the time of the Reformation there was in Holland one of the bright- 
est morning stars of the Reformation — Groot, who formed the 
Brotherhood of the Common Life that taught and believed in read- 
ing the Bible by all the people, and that prepared the way for the 
doctrines of the Reformation in the time when the Reformation 
came. So the Hollanders hastily accepted it and acted with it. 

Hollanders sometimes marry, you know. We have the Presi- 
dent of the United States, a strong man with Holland blood in him. 
He sometimes has said very strong words upon the subject of mar- 
riage and the family, but he has spoken them, as a rule, to other 
people than of Holland. He knew it wasn't worth while for him to 
talk very much to the Hollanders on that subject. They believed 
that; they believed in families. 

Now, there is a very singular thing in marriage in Holland. 
The Duke of Burgimdy, who ruled over Holland in the time just 
before the Reformation, had a daughter who married the son of the 
Duke's son of Austria, and that couple had a son who married the 
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella under whose auspices Colum- 
bus sailed, and that couple had a son who was born in the year 
1500 and became Charles the Fifth, one of the greatest rulers of the 

51 



Sixteenth Century, having Holland blood, Austrian blood and 
Spanish blood, and he ruled over Holland first, then over Austria, 
then over Spain, and then became the great Emperor of Germany. 
Ruling in Holland he tried to check the Reformation, but the Hol- 
landers were loyal to their rulers, and while they didn't rebel against 
him, they still clung to the doctrines of the Cross. When he abdi- 
cated the thone to his son Philip, who was still more severe in his 
government of Holland, then the Hollanders rose up in rebellion 
and four hundred of their nobles presented petitions, which were not 
granted, and then from every province and city rose up their 
delegates and representatives, and formed a convention of cities 
and declared their independence of Philip as unworthy to govern. 

In 1 58 1 Holland independence was declared. In 1776 we found 
it much easier to declare our independence because another nation 
had declared theirs before. 

These provinces were bound together in a Civil Republic by a 
written Constitution. The provisions in that written Constitution 
created a form of religious liberty — the right to free conscience. 
And then the fight was on. After the persecution there arose the 
great War, and the persecuted thousands gave up their lives for the 
Cross. In the War they fought against an empire, ofttimes defeated, 
but largely successful, until they won their independence. 

A hundred years of persecution and of war, to win their inde- 
pendence ! While we had but seven years of war to win our inde- 
pendence! We admire and inherit that nationality of blood, that 
strength of manhood, and their religious life. It was the very fibre 
of their life. They fought and bled for their religion. 

Now, look with me, about 1650, at two pictures : One here upon 
Long Island's shores ; an Indian pacing along the beach and looking 
over the sea. He is an Indian ; he has no very great national strain 
of force; he has no very great purity of religion, and he has not 
much education, and that horizon of the water bounds his vision, 
and all beyond is a mystery. There is no hope of a great future in 
him. 

There is another group over in Holland — Hollanders looking 
over the sea. They have back of them that of which I have spoken 
— Holland's strength of character ; they have back of them that of 
which I have spoken — this Holland religion ; they have back of 
them this Holland Reformation, and they look over the sea. They 
are not forced out by anything from behind, l)ut they are v^-arned 

52 



by the perils before them, and they take the initiative ; and here is 
a Httle, frail ship, and that ocean is an ocean of mystery and danger, 
and they embark in that frail ship with their goods and their wives 
and their children, and commit themselves to that great ocean of 
mystery and danger. 

It is a great thing for the immigrant to come from Italy or 
Austria to-day, to take the initiative, not when he is persuaded by 
others to come but wdien he dares much to benefit his family and 
himself and to enlarge his life, to leave old lands and customs and 
friends and society, and come to this land. But he comes in a great 
ship that masters the ocean, and he has heard of this land with all 
its promise, and its good government, and its welcome, and it is a 
comparatively easy thing. But in 1650 they knew nothing of this 
land, knew nothing of the welcome that was to meet them. And 
that was the kind of people you and I had for ancestors, and they 
were the ones who settled here upon Long Island and formed their 
homes and soon builded their church ; and they were the ones who 
started the organization that has gone on these many years, giving 
to this land its blessed influence. They brought with them that 
strong native blood ; they brought with them civil liberty, the bind- 
ing of provinces and representative governments by a written con- 
stitution; they brought with them religious liberty, and they have 
been a blessing to this community, to this nation and to the world. 
They did not think of it. If one of them came back to-day you 
would not find a more astonished person upon the face of the earth 
than the one who came and saw this great city and this flourishing 
community, and this Church, and thought of the Theological Semi- 
nary, and of the miracles of the Cross, and of this great nation 
expanding and influencing the world ! 

They did not know the extent of their work, but they did know 
that they were worshipping God : they did know that they were, in 
every circumstance of their life, putting their character into their 
Vv'ork ; and God took up their lives, took up their power, and wove 
all these into His great plan and purpose. 

Well, there is a lesson for us. We cannot tell the future but 
we can all tell this much, that if we put our best thoughts and our 
noblest character into our work, if by the strength that we have 
inherited from a noble ancestry, and with all the achievements that 
we have obtained from their great lives, we go on to do the duty 
that lies nearest to us, we may trust in the great God to take up 

53 



our work and form it into His great plans, and so we may help to 
bring in the government of God upon the earth, and to lift up the 
race of man into fellowship with Him. 

I congratulate you upon the past; I rejoice with you in the 
present; I bid you God-speed for all the future." 

12 DUET (Organ and VioHn)— "Trinity" Tobani 

13 PRAYER— Dr. Mackey. 

"Let us pray. Oh, God, our heavenly Father, we beseech Thee 
to follow with Thy blessing all these services to-day. We rejoice 
once more in Thy great goodness unto this Church in all the history 
of the past. We pray Thee that Thou wouldst bless her still more 
abundantly in the days to come. We pray Thee that Thou wouldst 
visit with Thy great grace and power all the membership of this 
Church. We thank Thee for Thy goodness to the pastor; we 
beseech Thee, our Father, that Thou wouldst still more bless him 
in the days before him; fill his heart and mind with Thy power, 
and give him many tokens of Thy love. Bless the eldership and 
the deaconship and the membership here, and grant, our Father, 
that through these services there may be a deepening of spiritual 
life, a quickening of spiritual practice, to the honor and glory of Thy 
holy name, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen." 

14 BARITONE SOLO— "Judge Me. O God" Dudley Buck 

Mr. John Lloyd Wilson. 

Rev. p. V. Van Buskirk. - 

"Allow me to express my thanks to our friends here for the 
inspiration they have brought to us. I hope that the words you 
have heard from their lips may be incorporated in your life of lives. 
It would be a great joy to me if I could see realized one-thousandth 
part of that which they have held up before my vision, and then, 
two hundred and fifty years from now, this Church would be a 
remarkable enterprise and have spread itself out so that multitudes 
more might engage in the same services in connection v»-ith our 
earlier congregation. 

I hope that they will accept my personal thanks and the thanks 
of the Consistory and membership and eldership and deaconship of 
the Church, for the words they have spoken to us this afternoon. 

54 



It gives me great pleasure now to extend an invitation to every- 
one who is in the house, at the conclusion of this service, to adjourn 
with us into the basement of the Church and partake of a lunch which 
has been provided by the Consistory, through the Congregation, for 
this occasion. If it should be necessary for any man, woman or 
child to think of going home, don't let them think of such a thing 
until they have gone into the basement and partaken of that lunch. 
We extend a hearty welcome to you and ask every person into the 
basement of the Church. 

I ask now that the clergy and their wives, and the visitors who 
have been invited to participate in this occasion, shall remain in the 
Church until the congregation shall have taken their seats at the 
tables in the basement of the Church. Let the ministers bide in the 
church building here for a few moments until the congregation shall 
have taken their seats, as there has been a special table reserved for 
the clergy and their wives and visitors. 

You will find in your departure from the building this afternoon 
a special program which will be put into your hands by the members 
of the Consistory and ushers ; you are entitled to one of them, and 
we hope they will be a memory for many years to come. Take one 
of those programs to your homes. 

The services to-night will be in the nature of congratulatory 
addresses by the different churches of the town, the old Town of 
Gravesend, for which an invitation has been extended to them to 
have themselves represented here in the person of their pastors. 
We expect them along with the addresses of the clergy who have 
been invited to make some remarks from the platform, and the repre- 
sentative of each individual denomination that is in the house to- 
night, in connection with this Town of Gravesend, will be invited to 
say a few words to the measure of five minutes' duration. 

We will now sing. 

15 HYMN (776)— 'The Church's One Foundation" 

16 DOXOLOGY 

17 BENEDICTION 

18 POSTLUDE (Organ)— March in B Flat Barnard 

55 



TUESDAY, MARCH 21st, 1905. 

Evening Services. 

Rev. p. V. Van Buskirk, presiding. 

1 PRELUDE (Organ and Violins) — Symphony, Opus log. Daiicla 

Miss Eva Marie Shenstone and Mr. Alfred M. Voorhees. 

2 ANTHEM— "I will extol Thee" Greene 

3 INVOCATION AND SALUTATION. i^^z;. P. V. Van Buskirk 

"Let us invoke the Divine Presence and blessing. Almighty 
God, our heavenly Father, v/e come to rejoice in Thy goodness and 
mercy which Thou hast manifested unto us this day. We thank 
Thee and ask that Thou wilt continue Thy blessings tmto us as we 
continue to exercise this our worship of Thee, as we pray to Thee 
in the enjoyment of Thy grace and Thy perfection, and as we go 
forward, wilt Thou grant that the Holy Spirit may come and mani- 
fest His power in us ; may this Church receive His grace, and this 
community manifest it in each of our hearts. And now, may all the 
words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable 
in Thy sight. Amen." 

4 RESPONSE (Choir) 

5 HYMN (727)— "Now be the Gospel" 

6 SCRIPTURE LESSON 

"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were 
?11 with one accord in one place." (Sixth Chapter of 
the Book of Acts.) 

7 TENOR SOLO— "My Soul is Athirst for God" Gaul 

Mr. Harry R. May. 

8 PRAYER 



"Let us unite in prayer. O Thou Infinite God, we hunger and 
thirst for Thee, and we thank Thee that Thou opened Thy 
hand and thus satisfied the desires of every Hfe in Thee. We thank 
Thee that Thou art infinite, omnipotent and eternal, and our King 
and loving, heavenly Father, and we come to Thee this evening with 
praise on our lips and in our hearts. We come to talk to Thee as 
to our friends and as one who speaketh to us more graciously than 
any other friend. We pray Thee to bring to this place of Thine some 
help from the past that we have commemorated. We thank Thee 
that Thou hast in this neighborhood ever kept this building which 
has stood as witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray Thee 
out of this occasion to instill in us a joy in our services and worship 
of Thee. We thank Thee that Thou hast advanced us in the fellow- 
ship with Christ in carrying out the great purpose of His infinite 
heart, and that He having left our earth yet remained in our midst 
in the spirit, and we pray Thee, O Spirit of the Most High, who 
does wonderfully receive many hearts, we pray Thee to move us here 
with Thy great power, and to stir these Thy people to renewed 
efforts and joy in the service of Christ, that they may conquer in 
His name. And so may they live unto the future, with hearts beat- 
ing high with hope. We believe that Thou, O Christ, art marcliing 
on to ultimate victory. We believe the day will come when every 
heart to Thee shall bow, and every tongue proclaim Thee King, and 
may v/e march on with haste in Thy service, and, plunging into the 
future of our service with Thee, with such joy and such effort that 
the Church of Christ shall become a greater force for righteousness 
through the world. 

We pray Thee to bless Thy dear servant, the pastor of this 
Church, and all whom Thou hast called to praise Thee here. Lead 
them to the Light. Let the service which Thy people render Thee 
be one of victory. Wilt Thou bless those who speak to-night, and 
those who are absent. Grant that all that we do may be to the 
honor of Jesus' name, and taking up our cross, may we follow Christ, 
marching under His banner forever. 

Forgive us our sins, teach us more of the things of Christ 
through the Spirit, and take us to meet the eternal King, Jesus 
Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen." 



9 HYMN (463) — "Nearer, my God, to Thee". 

57 



lo ADDRESS — Rev. J. S. Gardner, Flatlands, representing the 
oldest church on Long Island. 

"Mr. Van Buskirk and the Church of Gravesend: 

Most heartily do I bring to you the congratulations of the 
Church that is the oldest on Long Island. Two churches in the 
South Classis of Long Island are twin sisters, both having been 
organized on the same day, February 9th, 1654, although there is 
no question but that religious services were held at each of these 
places at irregular intervals long before 1654. We claim that our 
Church is a few hours older than Flatbush, having been organized 
in the A. M., whilst Flatbush was organized in the P. M. 
Flatbush cannot disprove this claim of priority any more than 
Flatlands can establish that it is so. As I understand, it rests on 
this solid foundation: The minister or ministers who organized, 
on February 9th, 1654, the Churches of Flatbush and Flatlands, 
came over from New York, and as Flatlands was the farther 
from Manhattan, the days short, the atmospheric conditions uncer- 
tain, like prudent Dutchmen, they performed the most arduous duty 
first and organized Flatlands Church in the A. M. 

Thus, as pastor of the Flatlands Church, I bring to you, form- 
ally, the congratulations of the oldest Church, and, informally, that 
of the Flatbush Church, for even by silence I would not want to 
even seem to imply that Flatbush Church (the same age of the 
Flatlands Church) does not rejoice with you on this occasion. I 
say this with something of confidence when I recall the deep interest 
that Dr. Wells, who so lately entered into the higher service of the 
King, ever had in the Church of Gravesend and her pastor. 

We are just a year older than you, but both organizations 
have atained to such dignity of years, that long since we have for- 
gotten the patronizing spirit which that year entitled us to. Our 
antecedents and yours are quite different. Yours were largely Eng- 
lish, ours were completely Dutch. The names of your early settlers, 
some of which are still with you, Stillwell, Bennett, Hubbard, tell 
us at once of England. Some of these. Sergeant James Hubbard 
and Lady Moody, came here to Gravesend for conscience sake, being 
denied in New England the religious freedom they desired. 

For two hundred and fifty years the Churches of Flatlands and 
Gravesend have been near neighbors, and, as far as I know, never 
has there been anything but the kindliest of feeling between the two. 
In fact, in quite a number of specific and individual instances I have 

58 



noticed that the regard has become so strong and the interest so 
deep, that a Hfelong co-partnership has been arranged. 

Two hundred and fifty years! — In the words of another, they 
'carry us back to the forest and the swamp, back to the days of 
the tomahawk and the Indian bow, of the wampum and the birch 
canoe.' They take us back to the day of small things, to the begin- 
ning, not merely of this Church, but of the colonies. 

That a church should be two hundred and fifty years old is an 
almost unknown quantity in this land, and some might be hasty and 
led to conclude that its days of usefulness were over. But the 
effective life of an individual or organization is not to be measured 
by the number of its years. This Church is an emphatic example 
of this statement. Never, in all your history, have you been physic- 
ally so well equipped for work; never in your history has the 
population of Gravesend been so large as it is to-day; never, in all 
your Church life, have there been so many churchless and indifferent 
people within the sight of your church home as to-day. One great 
condition of effective life is that there is opportunity for service, 
and this opportunity of service is yours. I congratulate you that 
you are endeavoring to be worthy of these opportunities. For, be 
well assured, that the church which does not endeavor to be of 
service is old, no matter what its years ; but the church that does 
serve men is ever young, though it may bear the years of the hills. 

I wish to congratulate the Church of Gravesend on the men 
who have been its pastors in these later years. Three of them it has 
been my privilege to know — one, Mr. Hansen, fairly well, and two, 
Mr. Stockwell and Mr. Van Buskirk, intimately. Mr. Hansen, so 
lately called to his rest, was a man of scholarly tastes, as is shown 
by his book, "The Reformed Church in the Netherlands," and the 
desire of his heart is revealed by the prayer, if you choose to call it 
such, with which he closes the volume. 

Mr. Stockwell for fifteen years was your pastor. His life 
was devoted to the quiet round of duties of pastor and preacher. 
Who can ever forget his kindly manner, his winning smile? Born 
under the skies of New England, he had in his character many of 
the virtues which have made New England strong. His love of 
simplicity, his hatred of cant, his desire to do good. 

Now for eighteen years Mr. Van Buskirk has been your pastor, 
under whose wise administration of affairs you have entered this 

59 



new and beautiful equipment. I know you love him, but do you 
realize the qualities of patience and quietness that must have been 
his during these changes? 

One of your own number, a member of your Consistory, when 
you built this Church, said to me : "I wonder how we ever built the 
Church, and yet nothing disruptive overturned peace in our congre- 
gation. I am a stubborn man, and others in the Consistory liked to 
have their own way." I could have told him that much credit of the 
peace was due to the patience and staying power of the pastor. 

Your pastor has the love and affection of all the members of 
the South Classis of Long Island. 

My friends, before these old Churches of ours, which have 
stood the storms of the centuries, new problems, new conditions are 
coming, are facing us. Are you and are we going to be ready to 
meet them? From generation to generation, for over two hundred 
and fifty years, the care of them has been handed down from sire 
to son, as a precious heritage, and they entered into the general 
life of the community, and the Church was the center and the end 
of everything in connection with the town life. In the days that 
are dawning before us, this thing, to a certain extent, has got to 
come. The question is this : Will these old Churches, this Church 
and the Church of New Utrecht and my Church, conform to changed 
conditions of work and life, and will strong men rise to do the work 
to be done on new and different lines which God has given ? 

Mr. Van Buskirk and the Church of Gravesend, in the name 
of the oldest church on Long Island, I congratulate you most heartily 
to-night on all these long years of gracious service, the result of 
which, the sum total of which, will never be known until we have 
wiped the death damp from our brow, and passed beyond the portals. 

Church of Gravesend, I congratulate you most heartily upon the 
men whom, through the providence of God, you have had standing 
before you in this pulpit, for their bearing as ministers, for their 
bearing as gentlemen, for their conduct as men among men. I con- 
gratulate you with all my heart to-night on every evidence which 
)'0u possess of enlarging and increasing the usefulness of your 
Church, and may the God of your fathers, the God that your fathers 
worshipped beyond the sea and here, be your God to the last." 



60 



II ADDRESS— A. H. Brush, D.D., of New Utrecht. The oldest 
settled pastor in the Classis. 

"Mr. Van Buskirk and Friends of Gravcscnd Reformed Church: 

My first word is the salutation of my congregation, most sincere, 
and congratulations to you upon this very pleasant and important 
occasion, and their desire that the years that are to come shall be 
more full of divine blessings to you and yours than those that have 
already finished. 

The Church of which I am pastor is called the Reformed 
Church of New Utrecht, or rather, at this time, the New Utrecht 
Reformed Church, and is a little in advance as to history of this 
Church in the matter of formal organization. If I am not mistaken, 
the congregation here did not organize quite as soon, within some 
years, of the organization that was formed at New Utrecht. How- 
ever, as to the formation of congregations, both this congregation 
and my own are contemporaneous, or nearly so, as will be noticed 
by all who have paid any attention to the history of these localities. 
They were served by one or by a number of the same ministers 
belonging to a kind of Collegiate Church in this neighborhood, not 
simply here and embracing our own locality, but that of Flatlands 
and Flatbush, perhaps extending to what we know as the First 
Reformed Church of this locality, that was down at the City Hall 
in those years. 

One of the many pleasant things to me about all this matter 
as belonging to one of these united Churches is that they have 
always been in such beautiful accord — such pleasant friendships 
and real intimacies. I don't recall in all their history that there 
ever sprang up disagreements between the ministers that were set- 
tled in these various parishes, or else that God's blessing rested on 
this community. It is a great deal that that is so. We may not be 
able to trace that to its exact source, but it is quite evident, if not 
entirely evident, that the hearts of this people were right, and that 
from the very beginnings here they intended to do the thing that 
was manly and kind and gracious one to the other. God grant 
that we may travel more and more in such ways. I have been 
privileged to live in this community for twenty-five years and 
quite naturally I have come to know in these many years numbers 
of people outside of my own particular parish, and I have remarked 
from time to time, that for helpful, sympathetic fellowship there 
is, after all, in these Dutch Reformed Churches with which we are 

6i 



so familiar more here than elsewhere. In the History of the Church 
here I marked that one of the things as connected with my own 
Church was this: that the people here agreed every year to give 
a third of the firewood that should be needed by the Pastor in the 
Church at New Utrecht. And the second thing that they agreed to 
in each year was that any repairs upon the parsonage there should 
be taken care of mainly by this congregation. 

Just in passing, brethren, I don't know but that it might be, 
upon this auspicious and delightful occasion, a good thing for you 
to renew that contract. We burn a little wood ourselves, and if 
you should bring it over and we are not at home, just put it in the 
window of the cellar of the Church. It will be all right, and when 
the parsonage wants repairing we will telephone to you. 

We are here reminded anew that we are the heirs of the age, 
the happy inheritors of that age which is past. I have been im- 
pressed with a great many of the things I have heard of this cel- 
ebration, and W'hile I am not particularly familiar with the history 
or the parts of it that are particularly relative here, I am glad to 
know that some things have settled themselves in my mind. Now, 
we don't live in the past, or we should not, but we ought not to 
forget the past. God, in His providence, intends that it shall fasten 
itself upon more than itself, and so it does, either for good or ill. 

Now, these really good — I think, great people — that lived so 
long ago, these historic people in Gravesend, I think a pleasant thing 
to think of in respect to them is their historic intelligence, and the 
thing to bear in our minds and to have impressed upon us that we 
may be better than we are, is the hard work that these people gave 
themselves to for the glory of God. 

I have spent a couple of summers in the pleasant State of New 
Hampshire. That is a rocky country, as you may know. I have 
ridden there a great deal and I love it. I have been in the country 
before I went to New Hampshire ; I knew what a farm was, and I 
have often thought of the downright hard labor in a high sense, 
that the men in the old times who were farmers put into their 
lives, and up there I was impressed by their thoroughness. You 
ride along, mile after mile, and you find everywhere you go the fields 
with great stone fences. Now, what does that mean? It means, 
if you have ever been in such places as that, it means a great deal 
of the hardest kind of work for these men to put those fences there, 
but you know everything about that — of the great rocks that must 

62 



be taken from the quarries or fields, but that is not all ; it must be 
put there in place and shaped. Hard work, surely ! 

Well, these good people had to dig among the rocks that were 
here two hundred and fifty years ago, if not upon this soil so level 
and free from rocks and stones as it is, yet upon the moral field 
that was here all about, and they had to put forth their labor to the 
utmost, to do what they did do, and you and I look over these 
fields to-day and we say : "How beautiful !" and our Fathers looked 
upon them and said : "How beautiful !" And yet the beauty of 
these things is the work which these good people did. Another of 
the things that impressed me is that they really had the prophetic 
sight, these old men and women. What do you suppose they were 
doing that for ? I don't know that any surer than that you wouldn't 
have thought that of the good people Hving yesterday, and some 
who are alive to-day and will be to-morrow, but he who serves and 
works as he should in this world is a prophet and he is prophesying 
by writing his prophecy in the energy that he puts into what he 
does, that it may stand not only for himself and his time, but stand 
beyond his time. That is what these people did. The prophetic eye 
and the prophetic sight they had. They were very penurious, if I 
mistake not, held things pretty firmly in their hands, while I don't 
believe that any more than I believe it particularly about people 
to-day, but it joins with what I just said; they prophesied and 
they gave way to you and to me. Here, at this reach of two hundred 
and fifty years, with the light of improvement round about us, in such 
a beautiful house as this is, and this splendid mammoth pulpit, let 
us not forget that these things came down to us from those who 
cared for us as you and I, I hope, are laying up in store, not for 
ourselves, but for our children's children, all the good things that 
God has privileged us to put our hands to and give our labor for. 

If you pardon me, I would like to pass on to one or two other 
considerations that have impressed me in regard to this beautiful 
building or home we honor to-day. I cannot quote it, but this is 
the idea : When the first pastor was to be called to this Church, an 
application was made to Amsterdam for a pastor. I notice that the 
request ran something after this fashion, "that they might have a 
pastor sent here for spreading abroad the glory of God." I said 
to myself : "Well, we boast in this time of ours of our liberal spirit, 
and we ought to, perhaps. We are very apt to say we ought to look 
farther, and it is right that we should. Let us not forget that 

63 



'somebody opened the way in the days that are gone as well as hi 
the Twentieth Century." I am glad that I ever saw those words, 
although I can't give them exactly — glad that I saw them, for I 
felt myself those to be true with the spirit of truth and purity which 
was not born to-day. It is God-given, and it has always been in 
the heart that is true to Him. Just think ! two hundred and fifty 
years ago, that they were so wide and free and full in their own 
hearts, that when they asked for a pastor it was with all truth that 
the glory of God might be spread. Can we match that? Are we 
not somewhat behind that now, when we come to think of it ? Let 
us catch the influence and fire of it to-night, and beg those things 
of God when we are building for churches or ministers, and bring 
into our view pictures of all this when we ask for these things, ask 
for them largely. 

In the second place they asked that he might send someone in 
order that the people might be instructed. Now, do you know, that 
I think I am not mistaken when I say that I have a conception that 
the religious revival we ought to get, and will get, in this Twentieth 
Century is a revival in the Church of God and throughout our land, 
upon that very idea and basis. We want to get back to the knowl- 
edge of the Infinite and the Infinite Truth. 

You remember, do you not, what Carlisle said years ago in one 
of the tremendous times in England, when the writers were specu- 
lating as to what was the matter why people were irreligious ; why 
this, with all the other denominations, was gathering so few into 
its folds? He came out in a few of his emphatic words, and he 
said : "I think that the whole matter with England is that England 
has forgotten that there is an Almighty God." And it was as true 
as God Himself. And when England heard that, England woke up 
to the fact that England had now to go back to find out something 
about God. Now, isn't it splendid to know that the fathers, yours 
and mine, had that splendid conception that there must be in every 
community, if things were right, there must be the deep feeling, 
and from the right source, of the things that were eternal. 

I go one step further. I am impressed, too, with what was 
true of these people in this regard, that they gave a fine and con- 
tinued and enthusiastic devotion and attention to the tilings of the 
house of God. Did they? Well, read the history. Their children 
should follow them. This reminder from the two hundred and 
fifty years is here to tell it ; and it is no false thing to say that we, 

64 




Old Gkavesend Reformed Church 



if living, could not have been sitting here under the Divine Life and 
in the enjoyment of these gracious things of this hour, had they 
forsaken the House of God. They loved the sanctuary and found 
the gates of Zion pleasant to them. 

I have just this word to say, that I am impressed with this 
occasion, and this history of the times gone ought to lead us in this 
time to turn and ask ourselves v\diether we are going to heed that 
teaching of the times. i 

We think we are right, if we think at all, in the conception of 
the progress of the truth of the Almighty God and the advance of 
salvation among men, simply by the building anywhere of churches 
and letting them stand with a man in the pulpit who has to preach 
morning and night, Sunday after Sunday, to a half dozen people. 
Is that God's idea? Is that any man's idea? Is that one of the 
forces by which He ordains good shall come to this world and flow 
as a stream throughout it until it fertilizes everything? — Not at all! 
It is not entirely forgotten, thank God ! But I will venture the 
assertion that here in this community of religious people, that one 
of the great forces which has been at work to maintain, establish, 
advance and glorify the religion of the Lord Christ is the devotion 
of men and women to the worship of Almighty God as He or- 
dained it. 

I have talked to you long, Mr. President and Friends. Pardon 
me. I have no more to say than just to repeat that I am very happy 
to be here. I am very happy that I am with these brethren in this 
beautiful session. I am glad that your Church and mine are such 
good friends. I am glad that we all are here. Now, I want for 
myself to step out from this time so memorable and so instructive, 
and be a better man and minister, and I am sure that you will carry 
away from this blessed time and from this place to-night what God 
is here offering and with full hands ready to give you ; and let us 
go hom.e resolved to love Him more, to love His Church better, to 
be fired with the spirit which filled the hearts and lives of those who 
have gone long before us. 

12 SOPRANO SOLO (with Violin Obhgato)— "The day is 

ended" Bartlett 

Mrs. James Van Siclen. 
65 



ADDRESS by the Rev. Mr. McDonald, of the South Reformed 
Church. 

"Mr. Van Buskirk, dear Friends of the Gravesend Reformed Church, 
and the Guests zvho arc assembled this evening: 

I have been asked on the spur of the moment to bring a few 
words of salutation to you from the South Reformed Church. These 
words are entirely unpremeditated and, therefore, may promise to 
have some more certain condition of affection, — although I am not 
in any degree a believer in an unprepared address. I remember a 
Methodist clergyman who was a believer in that form of speech. 
He said to one of his deacons : "I don't study my sermons ; I open 
my mouth, and the Lord fills it. Why," he said, "I frequently go 
from my door to the church door and select my text and prepare 
my sermon on the moment." "Yes," said the deacon, "and I am 
very much afraid, pastor, that is just what the people think of it." 

I would not attempt to say a word on this memorable and 
solemn occasion, were it not that I am somewhat indebted to your 
pastor. It is but returning the compliment when I bring a greeting 
from the South Reformed Church. He came over when I was in 
sorrow at the Reformed Church a year ago, and very kindly and 
very forcibly charged my people that they should do all things to 
assist my ministry there. Therefore, I return to you a favor when 
I bring to you the greetings of the South Reformed Church. 

All things in America are new, therefore we are impressed with 
the Two Hundred and Fifty Years of your Church. Our Church 
goes back only to 1838, just about seventy years of age. We are not 
you see, in the same class with you, although we believe that in 
these years we have done what we could for the Master's service. 
We count it a distinction and an honor to be permitted to say even 
a word on this occasion. 

One of the blessings of my life is to visit the congregations of 
those who made history. One of the great moments of my life is 
when I stand upright on the sunken slab where Henry Ward Beecher 
sleeps : "He thinketh no evil." — I fancy I get somewhat in touch 
with the man whom countless thousands loved and countless thou- 
sands mourned. It is inspiring to come into such attune, but to 
come to the end of a period of service of two hundred and fifty 
years and find life full of power for the Master's service, is a great 
thing to record for the glory of Almighty God, the Lord of Hosts, 
the King of Kings. Any service for Him is a great service rendered. 

66 



What service they have rendered, these "forbears" of ours, as the 
Scotch people called them ! What they have done and suffered and 
attempted in the name of Jesus Christ ! How we have come into 
their labor and taken out of their hands the history so noble and so 
inspired, and tried to fill in our way the places they filled so nobly 
in the days gone by. 

I hope the past will inspire you to be faithful in the hour of 
your activity. I trust that you will be found here uplifting the 
hands of your pastor in every way in which it is possible to uphold 
and strengthen them. That the pastor makes his people, is an old 
proverb, but it is old and truthful that the people uphold the pastor. 
It is the influence of three hundred against one. If you are apa- 
thetic, it is a damper upon his own spirit. If you are full of enthu- 
siastic love for Jesus Christ and His Church, he catches that fire 
from you and brings it to the pulpit. He brings into his pulpit 
every Sunday a large measure of the influence his people have had 
upon him during the week that is past. No man who stands in this 
place IS dependent upon even the best people to whom he ministers ; 
he has Jesus Christ for his friend, the Spirit of God for his enduring 
power. Nevertheless, your influence tells upon your pastor's work. 
Remember, then, when you tell him things ; keep your difficulties 
hidden ; bring your successes to the front. If your pastor finds 
as he goes among you, some light of the Spirit of God upon your 
faces as he talks to you, he will go back to his home encouraged. 
He has asked God to assist him in his help of you and is enthusiastic 
in His service. Jesus Christ noted the friends of His people. He 
appreciated what was done in His name. I suppose you and I have 
never met anyone who appreciates so fully as Jesus Christ appreciates 
the services rendered in His name. In the story of the "Widow's 
Mite" we learn of the great crowd in the Temple, the mass of the 
people dressed extravagantly and dropping in as their oft'ering large 
coins of gold, when the widow came in poor garments, with two 
mites in her hand and two little children holding by the skirts of her 
gown, and Jesus Christ said : "I say unto you, she has cast more, 
of her all, than they did cast of their abundance." 

The word "abundance" describes what was left of the loaves 
and fishes when they had eaten all they could ; then what was left 
was the "abundance," and from that abundance many gave to 
Christ, out of what was left they gave to the cause of Christ. But 
this woman out of her living gave to the Master's cause, and God 

^7 



appreciated it, and it made her famous throughout all the years 
of history. 

You have the samie chance to be noted by Jesus Christ when 
you see Him as one who would give up from your own heart's blood 
to serve Him and see that the observance of His home is fulfilled. 

Are not these great days in which we live? I used to go back 
in history and live in the days of old, but I believe that the greatest 
days the Church has seen are to com.e upon it. I believe we are 
going to see the greatest triumph of the Cross that History has 
yet seen, and you and I are here to take part and labor in the service 
of God. Will you be ready for that? Are you willing that the 
Spirit of God should use you? 

Our ministers are all telling us everywhere that the greatest 
spiritual movement the world has seen is to come to pass. Let us 
lift on high our souls that they may be filled with the wine. Let us 
not be called upon in vain when the wine of blessing comes. 

I remember being with friends by the side of the Miramichi 
River in New Brunswick. As the changing lights of the sunset 
fell upon an out-going ship it stopped. The water was turned by 
its propellers, but it refused to move. We wondered what the 
trouble was, when it became apparent that it was right on a sand- 
bar, and after straining all the engines that the ship possessed they 
signalled for tugs, and after laboring there for an hour or two 
hours they finally cast off their lines and went back to port. And 
the vessel lay there and the moon came out. Then that vessel rose ; 
went up over the bar as easily as a match would be lifted ; vv'ent over 
across the sea. 

The secret? The tide had come in; the almighty power of 
God had come in and lifted it up. 

Beloved, I believe we shall see the tide of the spirit of God 
come in upon the churches of our day. Let us be ready then for 
effective service in the Master's service. You in this Church see 
that your Pastor is upheld before the throne of God. You may 
get the fire of the spirit before the rest of us, and send it on to us ; 
we all need it. Will you in this time be men and women of the 
hour, ready to receive what God in His grace seems ready to give 
unto you? 

Now, I bring to you, beloved, the most sincere congratulations 
of your sister Church and the most sincere hopes that the two hun- 
dred and fifty years to come may be so far in advance of the two 

68 



hundred and fifty years past that even you and I are not in this 
hour able to imagine it. 

The Lord be with you and with your Pastor and with your 
labors." 



(The Pastor) "It was not a small part of my privilege to 
recognize that there were other churches in Gravesend. Since the 
construction of this Church we have had established here the Epis- 
copal Church, and there has been established the Methodist Church, 
and there has been established the Baptist Church, and the Presby- 
terian Church. I should be glad to call on each of these brethren 
for a ten minutes' speech." 



Rev. Mr. Hyde, Rector of the Episcopal Church at Sheepshead F)ay. 

"Worthy Pastor, Ladies and Geiitlenieii of the Congregation: 

It gives me great pleasure to speak to you, and yet at the same 
time some of you must have wondered why an Episcopalian has 
come to address your congregation, and I can give you a reason, a 
splendid historical reason, why an Episcopalian minister should 
stand here and address you, Reformed Churches or Lutheran, be- 
cause it was a Hollander, it was William, Prince of Orange, that 
came over to England and made the Reformation not only possible, 
but permanent. And it was a Hollander that gave the great impetus 
to freedom in Great Britain herself, and the very Bibles when trans- 
lated had to be printed in Holland and in Germany, and came over 
to London to be burned by a Roman Catholic Bishop. 

So that the currents of reformation and religion that came 
from this little district of Holland, each introduced itself into the 
prayer-book, into the very Constitution, as it were, of the English 
Church and religion, and that is the reason v/hy I have come here. 

I received a very peculiar invitation ; it was worded very 
peculiarly. I have been so busy lately that all the invitations I 
have received I have throv.m into the waste basket, but this invita- 
tion which came from your Pastor was worded so carefully that I 
thought I had better come over here and see what you Vv^ere doing. 
The invitation was not only that I announce to my people that there 
was to be a great demonstration and outpouring of the spirit here in 

69 



new and beautiful equipment. I know you love him, but do you 
realize the qualities of patience and quietness that must have been 
his during these changes? 

One of your own number, a member of your Consistory, when 
you built this Church, said to me : "I wonder how we ever built the 
Church, and yet nothing disruptive overturned peace in our congre- 
gation. I am a stubborn man, and others in the Consistory liked to 
have their own way." I could have told him that much credit of the 
peace was due to the patience and staying power of the pastor. 

Your pastor has the love and affection of all the members of 
the South Classis of Long Island. 

My friends, before these old Churches of ours, which have 
stood the storms of the centuries, new problems, new conditions are 
coming, are facing us. Are you and are we going to be ready to 
meet them? From generation to generation, for over two hundred 
and fifty years, the care of them has been handed down from sire 
to son, as a precious heritage, and they entered into the general 
life of the community, and the Church was the center and the end 
of everything in connection with the town life. In the days that 
are dawning before us, this thing, to a certain extent, has got to 
come. The question is this : Will these old Churches, this Church 
and the Church of New Utrecht and my Church, conform to changed 
conditions of work and life, and will strong men rise to do the work 
to be done on new and different lines which God has given? 

Mr. Van Buskirk and the Church of Gravesend, in the name 
of the oldest church on Long Island, I congratulate you most heartily 
to-night on all these long years of gracious service, the result of 
which, the sum total of which, will never be known until we have 
wiped the death damp from our brow, and passed beyond the portals. 

Church of Gravesend, I congratulate you most heartily upon the 
men whom, through the providence of God, you have had standing 
before you in this pulpit, for their bearing as ministers, for their 
bearing as gentlemen, for their conduct as men among men. I con- 
gratulate you with all my heart to-night on every evidence which 
3^ou possess of enlarging and increasing the usefulness of your 
Church, and may the God of your fathers, the God that your fathers 
worshipped beyond the sea and here, be your God to the last." 



60 



II ADDRESS— A. H. Brush, D.D., of New Utrecht. The oldest 
settled pastor in the Classis. 

"Mr. Van Buskirk and Friends of Gravcscnd Reformed Church: 

My first word is the salutation of my congregation, most sincere, 
and congratulations to you upon this very pleasant and important 
occasion, and their desire that the years that are to come shall be 
more full of divine blessings to you and yours than those that have 
already finished. 

The Church of which I am pastor is called the Reformed 
Church of New Utrecht, or rather, at this time, the New Utrecht 
Reformed Church, and is a little in advance as to history of this 
Church in the matter of formal organization. If I am not mistaken, 
the congregation here did not organize quite as soon, within some 
years, of the organization that was formed at New Utrecht. How- 
ever, as to the formation of congregations, both this congregation 
and my own are contemporaneous, or nearly so, as will be noticed 
by all who have paid any attention to the history of these localities. 
They were served by one or by a number of the same ministers 
belonging to a kind of Collegiate Church in this neighborhood, not 
simply here and embracing our own locality, but that of Flatlands 
and Flatbush, perhaps extending to what we know as the First 
Reformed Church of this locality, that was down at the City Hall 
in those years. 

One of the many pleasant things to me about all this matter 
as belonging to one of these united Churches is that they have 
always been in such beautiful accord — such pleasant friendships 
and real intimacies. I don't recall in all their history that there 
ever sprang up disagreements between the ministers that were set- 
tled in these various parishes, or else that God's blessing rested on 
this community. It is a great deal that that is so. We may not be 
able to trace that to its exact source, but it is quite evident, if not 
entirely evident, that the hearts of this people were right, and that 
from the very beginnings here they intended to do the thing that 
was manly and kind and gracious one to the other. God grant 
that we may travel more and more in such ways. I have been 
privileged to live in this community for twenty-five years and 
quite naturally I have come to know in these many years numbers 
of people outside of my own particular parish, and I have remarked 
from time to time, that for helpful, sympathetic fellowship there 
is, after all, in these Dutch Reformed Churches with which we are 

6i 



is plentiful but the laborers are few." And if we can only let these 
sentiments sink into our hearts, that we are laborers with God, that 
every prayer you utter is an act that is working for your good. Do 
not think it trifling; the world is made up of little things, and so is 
Christianity, and so is the success of your Church. 

I wish you all a hearty congratulation and an earnest bene- 
diction ; I wish you all success and prosperity ; I wish that you may 
grow and enlarge, and that the work of Christ may go on. I invoke 
this same x-lpostolic benediction upon your pastor and wish him all 
success. 

The blessing of God rest upon us forever. Amen." 

(TJic Pastor) "Among the most recent in the community in 
our Church organizations probably is the Presbyterian Church at 
Homecrest. We have heard the Rev. Mr. Tibbies before. I am 
very glad that I did not make the mistake in sending to Mr. Tibbies 
that I did to Mr. Hyde. I did not know that Mr. Hyde had no wife. 
I knew that Mr. Tibbies had no wife, and, therefore, I said that he 
should invite his mother. If I had known that the Rev. Mr. Hyde 
had not a wife, I might have said that he might bring his mother, 
but perhaps that would have been just as fatal a mistake as I made 
when I invited him and his wife, not knowing that his wife had de- 
parted this life." 

{Mr. Tibbies) "An unusual introduction. — I v.'as wondering 
how your pastor knows so well my family history. It puts me in 
mind of the story I heard Dr. Carson tell : "Two Irishmen were 
talking. One said : 'We had a sweet little baby come to the home 
to-day.' The other said : 'Was it a little boy ?' The first said: 'No.' 
'Well, it was a girl, then!' 'How did you know?' " 

So I did receive an invitation, but your good pastor had just 
drawn a line through the word "w^ife" and put "mother" over it. 
So I am very glad to be here and to greet you, dear friends and 
members of this Church, and your good pastor. 

You see, Dr. Hyde, I am somewhat in the same boat. (Speak- 
ing of Dr. Hyde and his Church. And the Episcopalians all getting 
interested.) I rang up a party on the 'phone the other day and told 
them that now we had a church full of Brooklyn people ready to 
rouse themselves for the revival, and we wanted to get all the young 
folks together. I had a conversation on the telephone ; then I left 
it, and a little while after the person rang me up and said : "Are the 
Episcopalians going to join us?" I said: "Yes!" And he said: 
"Thank God!" 

72 



We are going to have a revival meeting soon in Homecrest, 
and have a prayer meeting preparatory for the great revival because 
that Church has been selected for this section of the city. 

Now, this Church for two hundred and fifty years has been 
sending out its beacon light. Its rays have reflected Christ Himself 
here in this section. It has always stood for the grand old creed of 
Jesus Christ ! Its pastors have been faithful ; they have been de- 
voted souls to the Christ who saves from sin. It is an angel of 
history who would dare to try to put down in figures the power and 
influence of this Church, its influence upon this community, its in- 
fluence upon this city, how it has developed and rounded out citizens 
and good Christians. 

I thank God, dear friends, that as a servant of God, when a soul 
comes to me and says he wants to believe in Jesus Christ and serve 
Him, I can welcome him to the Church of Jesus Christ. I am glad 
that under the present conditions we can welcome them to the Church, 
and so, dear friends, those of you who are interested in this Church, 
— I speak especially to the young folks — be faithful to the past, to 
the traditions of this Church ; continue to sustain it in spirit and in 
truth ; continue to stand with your pastor and help him in his work. 

Now, I think I represent the youngest Church — four years ana 
nine months old — just a little baby. I know what it is to try to 
organize a church, and I say it is hard work. It takes all the 
strength a man has to call during the week and to try and raise 
money, and then, with a tired brain, to try and write two sermons, 
and with not the support of all those who are interested in our 
churches in the various sections. 

I am so glad we are going to work together. Friends, there is 
a grand future for this Church! You have a splendid equipment 
here. There will be new conditions and families gathering about 
this Church, and with your fine organizations and your Christian 
Endeavor Societies you are gradually going to improve them further 
and bring them into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 

I hope this Church may continue to send out a message; just 
present to them the Christ, Christ who saves from sin. Hovv- glad 
we ought to be we are living in Brooklyn! You have seen indica- 
tions of this coming revival, and last Sunday night It came through 
our way. We never had such a meeting before ; it was the first time 
I never preached a sermon in five years. We just sang the old hymns, 
and men got up there and testified who never spoke in our Church 

7Z 



before. I never felt such a power. When I went into the meeting 
and tried to offer a prayer, I nearly broke down. 

God is just waiting to pour out His Holy Spirit if we only pre- 
pare our hearts and our minds. 

I went to the two meetings to-day at Dr. MacAfee's Church. 
There wasn't a dry eye, and that is what we have got to do, friends, 
as pastors and members of Christ's Church ; we have got to get down 
on our knees and cry out : "Oh, Lord, create within me a clean 
heart !" 

We are going to receive a new inspiration. I am giving out a 
solemn warning to those who are not in our churches, and let us 
thank God that the tide is coming in, and may God give to each one 
of us, as Pastor and as people, a new inspiration. God bless this 
Church ! God bless these members ? God bless your dear Pastor 
and wife, whom we love and admire." 

(TJic Pastor) "The question has been raised in my mind 
W'hether the Presbyterian Church at Homecrest or the Methodist- 
Episcopal at Gravesend is the older or the younger. I am sure the 
Methodist-Episcopal Church at Gravesend is the younger organiza- 
tion and it has been our precious privilege to have been acquainted 
with two pastors who have been there. I introduce to you now the 
Rev. ]\Ir. Bronson, Pastor of the Methodist-Episcopal Church at 
Gravesend." 

"Fathers and Brothers: 

It is a great privilege indeed and a pleasure for me to bear to 
you the greetings of the Methodist-Episcopal Church at Gravesend, 
and I believe if I had the voice of the other Methodists in this 
County I would bear to you the greetings of that Church which has 
walked by your side and is endeavoring to collaborate Christ in 
their work and lives. 

I am indeed grateful to-night that it is my privilege to be here. 
I have looked forward to this day, to this time, with pleasure. I 
believe that there must be — I knozv, in fact, that there is — an in- 
herent value and worth in this great organization that has con- 
tinued against odds to exist for Two Hundred and Fifty Years ! 
The struggle for existence has been felt by this Consistory. It has 
not been borne to this time on flowery beds of ease by any means, 
but it has been a struggle, but through the struggle, every time 
and all the time, it has been triumphant. 

I remember reading in the Scripture when Paul went over 

74 



into Macedonia to make a call that he found there a woman named 
Lydia — he found there a Christian, and that Christian woman who 
had preceded the great Apostle, who had carried with her the light 
of life that she had received before, welcomed him into her house, 
and to-night we have the Methodist-Episcopal Church, our own, 
that one which came to this community, and the Dutch Church of 
this community not only welcomed us into their house, but gave us 
a house to worship in. 

We are indebted to you and we feel that in no small degree 
we are a part of you, and therefore we congratulate ourselves to- 
night that we, in some degree, can share in this anniversary. 

I want to bear to you to-night the congratulations from my own 
heart, of the fellowship and kindliness that I have received from 
these people, and especially from the Pastor of this Church. I 
have been welcomed to his home and I have been welcomed to his 
Church, and I have been treated with courtesy and with thorough 
kindness. 

Permit me again to bear to you our congratulations, and it is 
our prayer that you may go on in the future, and this inherited 
value and worth that is in you, which is the Kingdom of Christ in 
the earth and in this Church, may continue forever. 

"Say not, who will say the Word has died ? 

Who will say the hour triumphant is past? 
Sparks from Heaven within us lie, 

"Flash and re-flash till the last." 

(The Pastor) "I regret exceedingly, and apologize to Dr. 
Farrar, for moving him on the program down to the very end 
of it, but I had a purpose in doing that. He knows that purpose 
now, I think." 



Rev. J. M. Farrar, D.D., the First Reformed Church, Brooklyn, 
representing the Classis. 

"Mrs. Van Buskirk and the Reformed Church of Gravesend: 

"Like wife like Pastor." — It is the wife who deserves much 
of the credit for the magnificent work that has been done in this 
community for the last eighteen years. 

A gentleman built a new house and a lady visiting there one 
evening was taken by his wife through the house, and she showed 

75 



her the room her husband called his "den," and asked : "Has your 
husband a 'den?' " and the wife answered: "No, he roars all over 
the house." 

Now, every minister has a "den." and it is the v^ife who looks 
after him, tones him down, puts him in good disposition by a splen- 
did breakfast ; then kisses him and sends him out to his congregation, 
and they all praise him. Look well to the wife ; be kind to her ; she 
is back of every sermon, back of the kind, loving, sympathetic pastor. 

As the representative of the South Classis of Long Island, I 
am here ofificially, but personally I am here because I love Dominie 
Van Buskirk and the congregation to which he has so faithfully 
ministered. It is an honor to stand either officially or personally 
in this modern and beautiful Church and to be thus linked in the 
nistory of a successful Christian work of two and a half centuries. 

In the midst of this joyful celebration there is a note of sadness 
and regret. We miss one who would have represented the Classis 
and whose personality and life service gave him the seat of hone 
in all our assemblages — the Rev. Dr. Cornelius Low Wells. This 
generation must pass away before any celebration connected with the 
South Classis can be complete without his presence as counselor and 
companion. 

An anniversary is an eastern window in the Church of to-day 
through which we look out upon the avenues of yesterday ; and a 
western window through which we look for the opportunities of 
to-morrow. The past has its lessons for the present. The mills of 
the Reformed Church grind slowly but they grind ; slowly, quietly, 
systematically they grind exceedingly fine. The Church is best 
known not by her noise, but by her policy and products. The old 
mill kept its toll and sent out its products to the homes. The Church 
we represent has kept a small toll and sent out her grist to sustain 
every denomination now within her original parish. The first Dutch 
Church in America was organized in a mill, and the homes to which 
her product has been sent are the measure of her work. Measured 
by the true standards of value this organization has made great 
progress during her quarter millenial history. 

Our denomination, to change the figure, has moved so smoothly 
and with so little friction as to cause some on board to imagine she 
is anchored. 

As a Dutch sailing vessel was moving out of port the cook, in 
emptying the dishpan, threw overboard some knives and forks. He 
carefully marked the place on the ship from which he had thrown 

76 



them, and when they anchored at a distant port he dove overboard 
to tind his lost property. He learned then what the captain knew 
all the time that the ship had the same anchor, but not the same 
anchorage. The cook stuck head down in the mud, a thousand 
miles from his lost property, and the legend is that those who sail 
into that port can hear, when the tide is out, the cry of the pessi- 
mistic cook against the slowness of his ship. 

Our old Dutch ship is slow, proverbially slow, actually slow, 
so exceedingly slow that she has not gotten away from the Bible 
as the Word of God. Two hundred and fifty years ago our fathers 
did not say that the Bible contained the Word of God, but that the 
Bible was the Word of God. We have and revere the same old 
Book that our fathers spread upon the pulpit of this Church tvv'o 
hundred and fifty years ago. Too slow we have been to sail av/ay 
from the divinity of Jesus Christ. Our fathers of long ago made 
no distinction between the deity and divinity of Christ. To-day 
we would not be embarrassed if the founders of this Church were 
to rise and ask : "What think ye of Christ?" Our answ'er would be : 
"We think as our fathers thought, that He is the Son of God." — So 
slow, so slow is our old Church that when the flood of retribution 
comes we will be found within the old Ark, ready to sail to some 
mountain top of safety. 

But I must not spend too much time at the eastern window. 
There is a western window. We owe a debt to the future, and 
turning from the east window through which we have been looking 
back, we must look out through the west window to the work that 
is before us. The man who takes a harvest from the field without 
an adequate return is a thief. The parent plants a tree not alone that 
he may sit beneath its shade, but that his children may gather its 
fruit. We honor the man who, for the sake of his children, cuts a 
pathway through the forest ; we honor the children who sow the 
grain where the forest once stood. 

Let your anniversary be the reaping time for the present and 
the planting time for the future ; tell your children of it, and let 
your children tell their children, and their children another gen- 
eration. 

It was the Dutch who transmitted to the world, to a greater 
extent than any other nation, Christ's legacy of love to children. St. 
Nicholas is our patron saint. The Dutch gave us the word "Kinder- 
hook" — children's corner. Through the children let us pass the 
blessing on. At these anniversaries we are the present — they are 

77 



iIk- future. Anil remember wliilc we are speaking of two hundred' 
and fifty years, speaking of our age and of our dignit\ ; rL-nieniber 
that if this Church is to exist in the future, we must take off our 
liats and bow before the chiklren of to-ikiy. The future Reformed 
Church of Gravesentl must stand to-day hke the httle girl of whom 
someone asked: "How old arc you?" She said: "Why, I am 
not old at all ; I am almost new." 

The future Reformed Church stands "almost new" to-day 
before us. In our Sunday School, in mir jjrimary classes, this is the 
Church of the future, and we mi\st transmit something to them. 

When a farmer was told that he should plant a young orchard 
because the old one would soon cease to bear, he said: "It will 
bear enough fruit for me." lUit they said: "Vou must remember 
posterity ; you should plant an orchard for posterity." The farmer 
answered: "What has posterity done for me?" 

W'hat have our ancestors tlone for us? You have ilone nobly; 
you have inherited the past ; you have erected this beautiful church 
as a monument to the past. Hut your work is not half ilone ; you 
must transmit, transmit — send iU>wn this work through the gen- 
erations yet to come. Transmit the j)ower from heaven. 

Our ancestors were praying people ; they had the old family 
altar and they bowed before it. not on the seventh day alone, but they 
bowed before that altar seven days in the week. 

We good old Dutch i)eople are very fond of heirlooms. We 
like to show the old Bible, the old Dutch Bible with the heavy 
clasps. We like to show the old spinning wheel, and we have a 
number of old relics that have been through the fortunes of the 
past. I do not find as many good old Dutch people, as I would like 
to find, who point with pride to that old heirloom, the family altar. 
That is the richest inheritance from the i)ast. Let us hand down 
the family altar ! Let us hand down prayer ! The power of the 
universe to-day, let us hand down the habit of prayer to the future ! 

Randolph of Roanoke said: "I shouUl have been a French 
theist but for the memory of the time when I knelt at my mother's 
knee and said: 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'" 

Transmit the legacy of prayer, and transmit character, the real 
life character, the character that you are putting into your business 
and putting into your farms, putiing into your everyday work. 

The tutor of Xero will be hekl to a stricter account before God 
than he was held on earth. The character that is held before the 

78 



children is the character that will tell when we are dead. Pride of 
the past ! this we glorify to-day, but let us not forget our duty to 
the future. Transmit a discerning and decisive public conscience. 
Our fathers gave us a conscience, a public conscience, a conscience 
that stood for something. Those people who came down to Graves- 
end for conscience sake came down here to worship God as they 
believed He ought to be worshipped, stood not only for their 
conscience, but they stood for the public conscience, and they cre- 
ated a conscience in this community. We have inherited this pub- 
lic conscience. It is our duty and our privilege to pass it on. 

Starting away from these two hundred and fifty years, let us 
create something for the Five Hundredth Anniversary with which 
our names will be associated for good or bad. 

This morning in Winsted, Connecticut, as I was sitting in the 
hotel, there was a great excitement, and someone said : "A team of 
horses are running away !" I was in an interesting conversation 
with some gentlemen, and I said : "They are not mine." Just then 
someone said : "There was a little girl in that wagon." Then I said : 
"They are mine!" and I started to my feet. One of the gentlemen, 
mistaking my idea, said: "Why, have you a team here?" I said: 
"Any team running away with a little child in the wagon is mine." 
I feel responsible for the child of to-day. 

Friends, while I bring to you the congratulations of my own 
Church and the congratulations of our Classis, and the sympathetic 
congratulations of my wife to the wife of your pastor, I want to 
leave this as my parting word with you, the earnest word that I 
pray you to remember. The Five Hundredth Anniversary of this 
Church is to-day in the hands of the little children who arc mould- 
ing better than they know." 

{The Pastor) "I cannot refrain from expressing my thanks 
again, and my thanks personally as well as the thanks of the Con- 
sistory and Church, to all these brethren who have spoken to us 
to-night. 

There was one matter that was forgotten in our program, which 
/Comes to us very strongly now, and I ask you to rise and sing in 
conclusion two verses of "America — My Country, 'tis of Thee." 
Our fathers have left us this land. Let us lift our voices in thanks- 
giving." 



79 



"AMERICA." 

FE:',IALE QUARTETTE— 'Come unto lie" Hamar 

Misses Irene Storm, Alida Storm, Alice Strong, Estelle Sommer. 

TRIO (Organ and Violins) — "Simple Aveu" Thome 

HYMN (683)— '-Blest be the Tie" 

DOXOLOGY 

BENEDICTION 

ORGAN POSTLUDE— "Processional March" Ketelby 



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